


there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts

by 19tozier (lucashemwow)



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, Angst, Dom/sub, Eventual Smut, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Referenced Assault, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, Specific notes in beginning of each chapter, Sub Richie Tozier, character injury, dom eddie kaspbrak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:54:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 35,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27867221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucashemwow/pseuds/19tozier
Summary: There are four things that Eddie is irrevocably certain of.One: Eddie is most certainly a Dom. Two: Richie is most certainly a sub. Three: he has been in love with Richie since before he knew what love was. Four: there is absolutely nothing Eddie can do about it.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 22
Kudos: 138





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0HznzwPDQOAeJZCQt8EYDT)
> 
> this fic has been my baby for months now and im so excited to finally get to share it. love u always, i hope u enjoy <3
> 
> chapter content warnings: light emotional distress

_“Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.” – Vincent Van Gogh_

There are four things that Eddie is irrevocably certain of. 

They are things that he has used to orient himself in life. These are things that go beyond the science of it all, beyond that gravity exists and the sky is blue and the earth orbits the sun. These are things that make up the fabric of his world, certain inalienable truths that he holds dear to his chest. 

One: Eddie is most certainly a Dom. Two: Richie is most certainly a sub. Three: he has been in love with Richie since before he knew what love was. Four: there is absolutely nothing Eddie can do about it. 

It’s not for lack of wanting. God, does Eddie want, fiercely and wholly and overwhelmingly. There are days that wanting Richie is the only thing Eddie can think about. But he chokes that want down, because the things he wants are not things he can ever have, and it is easier to break his own heart than it is to take a gamble on hurting Richie. 

It starts, in theory, when they’re children. Before they’d even truly met, when it was just Eddie-and-Bill and Richie-and-Stan, Eddie had taken one look at a tiny Richie and thought to himself, _someone’s going to need to take care of him_ , and then just decided he would do it himself. It starts, in theory, when they’re all thirteen, before any of them had really presented, a mismatch of mannerisms and personalities that shouldn’t have worked but did so anyways, when Eddie took care of the scrapes and nicks that came from Richie not knowing how to fit into his body. It starts, in theory, when Eddie is too young to know what it is that he’s feeling but knowing that he feels it all the same. 

It starts, in practice, on Eddie’s couch. 

It’s been a tradition of theirs now for years, a Loser game night every Friday at whoever’s house is available. It usually falls to Eddie or Bev or Patty, the unspoken etiquette of socializing in a Dom’s house, and tonight it’s fallen to Eddie. They’re all scattered in his living room, in varying degrees of sobriety. There’s an unfinished game of Monopoly on the coffee table, where Stan had been wiping the floor with them all before they’d gotten too distracted to keep playing. 

Richie is sprawled across the couch next to him, loose and smiley like he always gets after too much alcohol. His curls are even more messy than they usually are, his eyes wet-bright and shining. Eddie can’t look at him for how beautiful he is. 

Bev snorts from her place on the other couch, lazily stroking her fingers through Ben’s hair. She has her other hand cupped elegantly around a glass of wine. “Annette’s kind of a shitty character,” she says, gesturing to the tv with her wine glass. It’s playing the shitty, awful show that Richie’s gotten them all hooked on, some soap opera based around each of the characters’s dynamics. 

Richie sighs, patiently, the way he does when any of them make comments about this show. “That’s the _point_ , Red. She’s a bitch.” 

Stan lifts his head from Patty’s shoulder, squinting at the tv before rolling his eyes. “She could be a bitch while being a better character, though.” 

“Name a better one, then,” Richie shoots back, grinning in that feral way he does when he knows he’s being particularly obnoxious. 

Stan glares at him. “I could name any character and they would be better than her.” 

Bill makes a considering noise, stretched out on the floor at Ben’s feet. “I like Pierre,” he says a bit dreamily, sighing at the Dom on the screen. “Very handsome.” 

Eddie laughs, tossing a piece of popcorn down at Bill’s head. Bill just picks it up and eats it. “You only like the characters you think are hot,” he accuses, giggling when Bill shoots him the finger. 

“Is there any other reason to like a character?” Richie muses, his eyes twinkling when Eddie shoots his head to look at him. He’s very obviously just trying to rile Eddie up, his grin shifting into a smirk, and Eddie lets himself be baited. 

He rolls his eyes, gesturing to the tv. “Yes! So many other reasons! How about character arcs, huh? Or characters of _substance_ , okay, not just cheap characters with no backstory! Characters who change and mature and grow, who become entirely new people by the end of it, how about that, jackass?” 

Richie’s laughing at him, his shoulders rippling under the force of it, his head thrown back onto the pillow behind him. Really, they’re all laughing at him, how they always do when he and Richie start in on each other, but Richie is the only one he notices. The happiness and the joy roll out of him in waves, warm and sweet like sunshine, and it is truly the most beautiful thing Eddie has ever seen. Richie is always beautiful, always has been and always will be, but like this, loose-limbed and open, Eddie feels his heart clench with the love he forces himself to swallow down. 

“You sound like you’ve given a lot of thought into this,” Richie says, stretching out to nudge his foot against Eddie’s thigh. Eddie’s skin burns even through the layers of fabric separating them. “Who’s your favorite character then, Spaghetti?” 

Eddie rolls his eyes, pinching softly at the skin of Richie’s ankle. “Don’t call me that, dipshit. And if you must know, the best character of this show is quite obviously Carolina.” 

Mike nods his agreement from the floor next to Bill. “She's a badass.” 

Bev makes a considering noise, taking another sip of her wine. “Not sure if I’d use the word badass, but she’s definitely the least whiny out of all of them. I know this is a soap opera but _damn._ ”

Richie scoffs, throwing himself back into more of a sprawl so that his legs drape entirely over Eddie’s lap. “What the hell? No way she’s the best character, she’s only been in one episode!” 

Eddie rolls his eyes, pinching at the thin skin of Richie’s ankle again. Richie yelps and gently kicks into his stomach, glaring at him. It makes Eddie snicker. “You never said they had to be in more than one episode.” 

Richie’s glare intensifies, shifting into more of a pout as he crosses his arms. The force of his attention like this makes Eddie’s chest tighten, his heart fluttering with warmth. His arms itch to reach out and pull Richie in, his hands aching to hold him and touch him. Eddie has to shove his hand under his thigh to stop himself from doing so. 

“I thought it would be a given, Spaghetti,” Richie shoots at him, petulant. “How can you even know she’s a good character? She’s barely said ten words!” 

Eddie hums, smirking. Richie gets under his skin so easily that sometimes he forgets how easy Richie is to rile up too. “I just know,” he says. “Not my fault I’m better at picking characters than you.” 

Mike chuckles, propping his chin on his fist. “Oh, here we go.” 

Bill rolls his eyes, rolling over on his stomach to pillow his head on his arms. Mike settles one hand in the small of his back. “Why should we even watch a show when you two are so much more entertaining?” 

Stan raises his wine glass, giving Bill a mock toast. “ _And_ they never shut the fuck up.” 

Eddie glares at them both. “I shut the fuck up! Tell that to Richie, he’s the one being annoying!” 

“No, you’re both annoying,” Bev laughs. She has Ben’s head in her lap down, her fingertips gently trailing over his cheeks and forehead. Ben’s got his eyes closed, a tiny smile on his lips as he leans into the touch. They’re so soft and open with each other, able to give in to their emotion. It makes Eddie burn. 

His hand tightens around Richie’s ankle, the other curling into a fist beneath his thigh. The instincts in his chest give a violent whirl, battering at his ribcage in an attempt to be let out. He’s well-versed in how this goes: everything inside of him aches to call Richie his own, he remembers that he will never be what Richie needs, he shoves that feeling down until he’s sick. It’s like clockwork, really. And here the clock strikes the hour and the alarm blares, the way it always does. 

He thinks that the conversation keeps spinning around him, the others laughing and yelling, but he’s distracted. His chest is a swirling mess of feeling, his heart beating in the rhythm of Richie’s name, and it is completely overwhelming. It’s too much for one person to hold and he feels split open with it. It always feels intense, like dominance in the same sickening style of—

He jerks. He doesn’t want to think about that. Not here, not now, not ever. 

Richie shoots him a look, his surprise melting into concern when their eyes meet. He tilts one socked foot to nudge against Eddie’s chest, arching an eyebrow. “You good, Eds?” 

His voice is soft. The rest of their friends are busy settling back in to finish the game of Monopoly, a game that Richie unequivocally loves even if he’s the worst at it, and he is still settled on the couch with Eddie. 

Eddie swallows, pasting on a grin. He hopes he doesn’t look as wrecked as he feels. “I’m all good.” He jerks his chin at the coffee table. “You aren’t gonna play?” 

Richie is still watching him with an unreadable expression. There is something faintly knowing in his eyes, but he just gives Eddie a soft smile. “Nah,” he murmurs. In the buttery light of the lamp, he looks warm and sweet and content. “I’m happy right here.” 

Eddie attempts to smile back. It aches. “Me too.”

* * *

There had been, truly, no other option than for Eddie to present as a Dom. Sometimes Eddie wishes there had been. 

But what he wanted never mattered. Despite his mother’s influence, despite the odds that always seemed to be against him, despite the dread the idea of it all left within him, there had been an instinct inside of him to protect and take care of those that he loved. It was enough that when his dynamic test came back with the red circled word _**DOMINANT**_ across the top, nobody had batted an eyelash. 

It is these same instincts that are now driving Eddie crazy. 

In the days and weeks following that night on the couch, Eddie’s feelings seem to grow more and more intense. It’s confusing, because he was absolutely certain he had gotten over them. Not over them in the sense that he wasn’t in love with Richie anymore, because he’s been in love for so long that he doesn’t really know how to stop, but in the sense that he thought it couldn't blindside him anymore. He had long since grown used to the way his heart fluttered when Richie laughed or the warmth in his stomach when he and Richie argued. He had thought it wouldn’t be a surprise anymore. 

But Richie keeps doing things that choke Eddie up. He is the same annoying asshole as he’s always been but here and there come tiny acts of submission that Eddie doesn’t think he’s ever seen before. Sure, he’s seen the way Richie goes pink whenever he is gently Dommed by anyone in their group. He’s seen how flustered Richie can get whenever someone praises him more than he knows what to do with. He’s seen the quiet way Richie can follow orders even if he’s outwardly bitching about it. But he’s never seen Richie bite his lip and tilt his head back until his throat is completely bared, and he’s never seen Richie’s grin go soft and sweet like this. 

He had come to terms with his feelings a very long time ago. He had been twelve when he realized his feelings for Richie had morphed into love, after all. He’s been good at suppressing the Dom inside him for even longer, since before he even took the dynamic test and was forced to admit to what he was. He likes to think he has a pretty good grip on himself by now, but this shift in Richie’s behavior comes with a shift in everything Eddie has used to ground himself. 

He feels like he is seconds away from buzzing straight out of his skin. His instincts roar and snarl and snap inside of his chest, begging to be near Richie, and Eddie is powerless to do anything except shove them down. It’s exhausting, constantly forcing himself not to do what feels like it should be natural, but Richie isn’t his to do these things to. Light acts of Domming have always happened between them, because Eddie is nothing if not the protector of his friends, but there are lines that he will never dare cross. It’s one thing to grab Richie a drink or ruffle his hair whenever he needs a little comfort, and it is another thing entirely to whisper _good boy_ in his ear and touch the fragile skin of his throat. 

It fucking _hurts_ , because everything Richie is doing is just proof that Eddie will never be able to see the real thing. These half-submissions are as close as Eddie will ever get, because he will never, ever be the Dom that Richie deserves. 

Bev sees it, the wretched angel that she is, and by extension so does Patty. They likely have for a while but they wait to say anything until another one of their get togethers, this time at Bev and Ben’s apartment. Richie had been normal all afternoon, bitching and arguing with Eddie, but Eddie still feels on edge. When Eddie gets up to grab another sandwich from the kitchen, needing a moment, Bev and Patty both follow. He doesn’t see it for the ambush that it is until they’ve closed the kitchen door behind them.

“You’re acting weird,” Bev says bluntly, folding her arms across her chest. Beside her, Patty nods.

Eddie sighs. In any other environment, with any other people, being cornered by two Doms would make his hackles rise and his temper flare. But this is Bev and Patty, and he’s exhausted, and he can hear Richie giggling with Ben in the other room, and his heart is aching in his chest, and he doesn’t mean to open his mouth but out from it falls, “I’m in love with him.”

Patty blinks, her mouth falling open. “You’re—wait, _what?_ ”

Eddie frowns, shifting his gaze from Patty to Bev and back again. He’s on the defensive now, his shoulders squared for a fight. “I’m sorry, was that not why you cornered me? I thought this was an intervention.” 

“No, it is,” Bev says, slow, her eyes wide and startled, “but we weren’t really expecting you to just admit it. We’ve been trying to get it out of you for _years_.”

Eddie sniffs, crossing his arms over his chest. “It wasn’t important then.” 

Patty’s eyebrows go up, her expression turning even more shocked. “And it’s important now?” 

Eddie blows out a breath, turning around to brace his hands on the counter. It’s easier without having to see their faces when he whispers, “I want him to be my sub.” 

Bev makes a confused noise, reaching out to touch his shoulder. He tenses but doesn’t pull away. “I don’t understand. You didn’t want that before? Is that why you’re acting weird?” 

Eddie rolls his eyes. He shrugs out from beneath her touch to grab all the things he needs for his sandwich, just so he has something to do with his hands. He’s painstaking in the process, slower than he needs to be, just so he doesn’t have to look at either of them. He freezes when he realizes he has, without his own conscious permission or fucking Richie’s, begun to make Richie a sandwich too. He forces himself to keep going. He can be a good friend without it being a Dom thing, he reasons, a bit desperately. He can keep the lines separate. 

“I’ve always wanted that,” he says, quietly. His hands shake. “I have _always_ wanted him to be mine.” 

He’s wanted Richie since before he knew it was a thing he could want. He’s wanted Richie since before they were even properly friends. He wants Richie in a way that absolutely fucking terrifies him. He always will. 

He doesn’t have to see that Bev’s confusion has deepened. “Have you told him?” she asks, speaking just as quietly as he had. Wordlessly, she gathers the ingredients he pulled out and starts to put them away.

Eddie shakes his head, sliding her the jar of mayonnaise. “No, and I’m not going to.” He spins on his heel, pointing first at Bev and then at Patty, glaring at their faux-innocent faces. “And neither of you will either. I don’t need you to meddle in this.” 

Patty rolls her eyes, leaning back against the kitchen table and crossing her arms. Her wedding ring glints cruelly in the light. “We aren’t going to, calm down. But would it be such a bad thing if he knew?”

Eddie scoffs, shaking his head. “It wouldn’t change anything, so what does it matter?” He brushes crumbs off of the counter, resisting the urge to grab wipes and go over everywhere he touched until it’s sparkling. He promised himself he would stop that. “I can’t be his Dom.” 

Patty frowns, reaching out to touch his elbow. This time, Eddie all but rips himself free from the touch, hunching his shoulders in. Patty’s lips part in surprise. “What do you mean, you can’t be his Dom?” 

Eddie’s skin is prickling. Out in the living room, Richie’s giggle comes again, that adorably obnoxious honk of laughter that is as endearing as it is ridiculous. He’s probably leaned up against Stan’s shoulder, spouting some bullshit to make the whole room laugh too, and Eddie’s heart hurts with it. How is it that Richie has the ability to heal his heart and simultaneously crack it in two? Without even knowing it?

“Because I can’t be what he needs,” Eddie says, quiet and resigned. Bev’s hand moves to grab his shoulder, but falls limp before it can make contact. “I can’t be what he wants.” 

Patty shakes her head, throwing a helpless look over at Bev. “How can you know that, sweetheart?” she asks him softly. 

Eddie blows out a breath, hugging his arms to his chest. He resolutely stares down at the floor. “Is it too late to say that I don’t want to talk about this?” 

Patty makes a sound deep in her chest, crooning and soft. It is the kind of sound she’d make to soothe Stan if he was ever scared or upset, and Eddie thinks it surprises her as much as it surprises him. But it has the intended effect; Eddie may not be a sub but comfort is comfort and they all know it. His shoulders, drawn up tense around his ears, relax a fraction of an inch. 

“If you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to,” Bev murmurs. Her voice is gentle. “But if you do want to, we’re probably the ones that understand the most.” 

Eddie’s teeth sink into the inside of his cheek hard enough that he tastes blood. He could grab his sandwiches and leave the kitchen and he knows Bev and Patty would drop it. It's what he _should_ do. He should bundle this up inside of himself and lock it tight behind his ribcage, he should shove it down far enough that it’s hidden from even himself. He should paste on a smile and say that he’s _fine_. 

But Eddie has never been good at doing the things that he should do. Right now he’s angry and hurting and so fucking drained that he feels like he will wither away into nothing. His shoulders drop, a sigh pulling free from his lips. 

“I can’t be his Dom because it will be too much for him,” he murmurs, closing his eyes against the sting of tears. “I’m too much like my mom.” 

Bev gasps and then swears, loud in the sudden silence of the room. Eddie flinches but doesn’t open his eyes, huddling in on himself and pressing himself back against the counter. Panic threads itself around his lungs and pulls tight. 

“Honey, you are _not_ your mother.” Patty’s voice is shaking with barely concealed rage, tight and hard. It comes from just in front of him, her warmth soothing in the face of the frigid cold in his heart. “You are nothing like her.” 

Eddie snorts, the sound rough and painful down his throat. “Bullshit, I act just fucking like her. I’m just as crazy as she was, I’m a hypochondriac and a germaphobe and everything else she fucking conditioned me to be. It’s been years and I’m _still_ like that. I’m too intense to ever be his Dom.” 

Bev grabs for his hand, holding firm even when he flinches away. Her thumb is gentle as it strokes over his knuckles. “Eddie, you’ve taken subs before, haven’t you? And it’s never been a problem.” 

Eddie opens his eyes to shoot her an incredulous glare. “Are you fucking kidding? That’s different and you know it. Those have all been one night stands, not Richie being in a relationship with me.” 

Patty’s brow furrows, her eyes dark. “Why does there have to be a difference? You weren’t too intense for anyone else you’ve ever been with.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes. His heart thunders away inside of his chest, beating hard enough that he’s certain his ribs will crack. Something small and young inside of him yearns to believe their infuriatingly simple logic, but he squashes it firmly before it can bloom. Things are not simple for him. Not for Sonia Kaspbrak’s son. 

“A scene is one thing,” Eddie says, his voice carefully measured. He takes a deep breath, filling his lungs until he can’t anymore. “A scene is just some kinks and some sex. It’s casual. Not Richie being my _actual sub_ full fucking time.” 

Bev shakes her head, incredulous. Her grip tightens on his hand. “Eddie, do you even hear yourself? What the hell do you think happens when you’re in a relationship? It’s not full dominance or full submission constantly. It’s still a _relationship_ , regardless of dynamics.” 

“You and Richie wouldn’t change,” Patty says softly, taking his other hand. “You’d still argue constantly. You’d still get on each other’s nerves. You’d still be _you_.”

“I know that,” Eddie argues hotly, his cheeks burning bright with the embarrassment and anger dancing in his chest. “He’s more than his dynamic, I fucking know that. It’s _me_. _I’m_ the problem.” 

“Why the hell would you be the problem?” Bev’s voice gets louder, more vicious, before she quiets back down to nearly a whisper. “Eddie, you aren’t like your mom. I know that and so does Richie. Him being your sub or you being his Dom wouldn’t change anything.”

Eddie loves Patty and Bev. He loves all of their friends, fiercely and completely and irrevocably, but Bev and Patty hold a special place in his heart. They are the only ones who truly understand what Eddie feels at any given moment, because they are driven by the same set of instincts to hold and protect and love. Ben and Bill and Mike try to understand, switches as they are, but they don’t get it in the same way. Stan and Richie obviously don’t, because their instincts rely on an entirely different switchboard of emotion. It’s always been Bev and Patty and Eddie against the world, Dom to Dom to Dom. 

But this is not something they could ever hope to understand. Neither of them fear the Dom inside of them, neither of them are certain that their dominance equals disgusting control. Neither of them are certain that if they blur the line, they’ll inevitably end up hurting the one they love. This is Eddie, completely alone. 

“You’re right,” he murmurs. Both Bev and Patty relax, smiles forming on their faces, before he gently pulls away from them and grabs his plates from the counter. His knuckles are white from the force of his grip. “It would change everything.” 

He pushes out of the kitchen before either of them can stop him. His body is buzzing, a white-static feeling tingling through his brain and down to his toes. He wants nothing more than to disappear into his apartment until he’s sorted himself out and torn through these changes in his instincts, but he forces on a smile anyways. Two people is too many for this secret, he thinks. He doesn’t need more. 

The others are laughing when he turns the corner into the living room, blissfully unaware of the turmoil inside of Eddie’s head. The only one who even notices Eddie’s return is Richie, who tilts his face up towards Eddie and beams. It is as warm and bright as sunshine. 

“You were gone for a while,” he says, shifting over on the couch to give Eddie a place to sit. He does, albeit very, very carefully. “You okay?” 

For a second Eddie panics, certain that Richie somehow overheard the conversation in the kitchen. There’s no way he could’ve though, so Eddie forces himself to relax, lightening his voice until it’s believable. “Yeah, we were just talking. Dom stuff.” 

Richie scoffs, curling both of his long legs up to his chest. It makes him look painfully small and young. “Oh sure, ditch us for Dom stuff. It’s whatever. We don’t need any of you, we’ll just make our own club without you. How about that, huh?” 

Despite himself, Eddie laughs. Something inside of him softens at the sight of Richie’s smile. “I didn’t even ditch you, asshole, don’t go making a club without me. I want to be the president.” 

Richie sniffs. “Oh, of _course_ you’d want to be the president. Even though it was _my_ idea and _my_ club, _you_ want to be the president, ‘cause fuck me I guess.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes, settling back into the couch and forcing himself to relax. He still feels antsy, especially when Patty and Bev slip out of the kitchen together, but he focuses on Richie’s face instead. “I made you a sandwich, dick. That scream ‘fuck you’ to you?” 

He expects Richie to banter back. He expects Richie to grin and make some joke about making Eddie scream. He expects a wink and a flirt and everything he’s come to associate with _Richie_. 

Instead, Richie’s face goes soft, his expression open and full of wonder. His eyes dart down to the sandwich in Eddie’s right hand and stick there, taking it in. Eddie wonders what he sees. Wonders if he can tell how neat Eddie subconsciously tried to make it, just for him. 

“Thanks, Eds,” he says, gentle and sweet. His smile feels like coming home. “You didn’t have to do that.” 

Eddie swallows. He feels off-kilter again, like everything in his life has been shifted an inch to the right and he has been left to stumble into it all. He doesn’t know if he has the ability to talk but somehow he manages to choke out, “Anytime, Rich. And don’t call me Eds.” 

Richie just laughs. He is careful when he takes the plate from Eddie’s hand and he is almost reverent when he eats. It’s not much, obviously, just a simple sandwich with simple ingredients, but he eats like it is the most delicious thing he’s ever tasted. His eyes droop closed in pleasure. 

In spite of how Eddie viciously tries to shove it down, there is warmth building in his chest at being able to take care of Richie. Behind his eyelids sits visions of his mother, making him a sandwich or bringing him food as manipulation, always because she wanted something from him. He doesn’t want anything from Richie except for him to be safe and happy and content but he still feels dirty, sick and twisted just like his mother. 

He swallows. For once, he tries to ignore his mother’s voice in the back of his mind. He tries to ignore the looks Patty and Bev are giving him. He tries to ignore everything except the happiness on Richie’s face. 

Richie’s shoulder is warm against his own. Eddie’s instincts go blissfully quiet in his chest.

* * *

It is extremely telling that the best parts of Eddie’s day are his drives to and from his garage. 

It’s not because of the driving, though of course he still loves doing that. He’s the only one out of their friend group to genuinely enjoy driving and not just see it as a chore, after all, especially in a city like Chicago. Cars and engines have made sense to him since he was a little boy sitting and watching his father work on beautiful vehicle after beautiful vehicle, and he loves cars for what's under their hood, but it’s the physical act of driving that gets him. How it’s just him and his car and the road beneath his tires. How there’s only so much room for his mind to wander. It’s why he’s never minded the thirty plus minute drive out to his garage everyday. 

That, and Richie always calls to keep him company while he drives. 

“I’m just saying,” Richie is telling him now. His voice is bright and bubbly, the smirk evident even through the speakers of Eddie’s car. “I _really_ didn’t think she was going to have a problem with it.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes. The leather of his steering wheel is wonderfully cool beneath his palms. “Rich, you cursed someone out on live radio. In what fucking world would she _not_ have a problem with that?” 

He can hear the way Richie pouts. Richie always does so with his entire body: eyes big and downcast, lip dramatically jutted out, shoulders turned in, and his voice always dips low and whiny. It’s endearing as all hell, even if Eddie always pretends to be annoyed by it. 

“They were being mean!” Richie argues back. “They called in specifically to tell me to shut up, what else was I supposed to do? And I swear on the station all the time! My favorite word is fuck! This is not new!” 

Eddie laughs. It feels good, rising from his toes through the depths of his belly and out. He had had a bad morning, rising groggily from a nightmare of shadowy hands and pill bottles and the gnawing, all-consuming fear of his childhood, but Richie’s voice makes him feel lighter. Calmer. Safer. 

“Pretty sure you didn’t have to call them a ‘motherfucking shitstain of a fucking bitch’ though, but whatever,” he says, grinning. He hears Richie’s scoff. “What the hell do I know, huh?” 

Richie sniffs delicately. Eddie is struck, not for the first time, by how he has Richie’s mannerisms memorized, able to match his inflections and tones to any emotion. He can picture Richie curled up on his shitty couch, phone jammed between his shoulder and ear as he doodles in his broadcasting notebook. 

“My dearest Eddie,” Richie says, affecting one of his shittier Voices. It’s a vaguely Southern, vaguely British one. It’s awful, and Eddie knows that’s the point. “I understand you are one of those car types, so you’re excused for stupidity, but radio broadcasting is serious stuff. Only the best of the best get it.” 

“Oh, _fuck_ you,” Eddie snaps, scowling even if Richie can’t see him. He has to fight to keep it from twitching into a smile. “You are such a fucking shit. You’re the least funny person I know.” 

Richie hums. The sound is warm and rich, spilling out of the speakers and directly down Eddie’s spine. “Oh, so you’re a liar. Today is just lie to Richie day. Next you’re gonna tell me that I’m not your most charming and handsomest friend.” 

“Oh, you’re something alright,” Eddie gripes. He’s getting into the heart of the city now, edging into thicker and thicker traffic the closer to the center of Chicago he gets. “Sometimes you make me want to fucking throttle you.” 

Richie gasps in something that sounds dangerously like delight. “Why Edward, I do declare! Before you’ve asked for my hand in marriage? My daddy will surely have a cow.” 

Eddie’s scowl deepens. His heart jumps at the idea of asking Richie for his hand in marriage, even if he knows he’s being ridiculous. He chokes it down and manages to growl, “You're the worst. I don’t like you. I want a fucking refund on our friendship.” 

It’s silent for just a moment before Richie huffs a soft laugh. His voice is impossibly warm when he murmurs, “Sure, Spaghetti Man. I’ll get right on it.” 

Eddie’s words stick in his throat. As always, his love for Richie blooms outward, spreading through his veins and into his very bones. Sometimes, when he’s feeling particularly poetic, he imagines that his love for Richie spills down to his very atoms. He thinks that if someone were to try and take him apart, shove him under a microscope, they would see that Richie’s name is scrawled across every inch of him. It is what Eddie is built on. He doesn’t know what he is without it. 

He clears his throat, hopes desperately that he does not sound as flayed open as he feels. “I’m expecting cash. Forward it to the garage. And don’t fucking call me that.” 

Richie doesn’t even deign to respond to that. He simply hums, the sound lilting up at the end like it does when he smiles. His voice is still quiet when he says, “Are you close? To the garage?” 

Eddie blinks, thrown by the non sequitur. He comes back to himself, crashing hard from the clouds that Richie always seems to fly him in to. His hands flex on the steering wheel. “Yeah, a block away. Should only be a minute or two now.” 

Richie blows out a sigh, static crackling over the line for a moment. “Damn. I wasn’t done talking to you yet.” 

It makes Eddie smile, something small and private and fond. “I’m not there yet, idiot. Don’t hang up on me now.” 

He can imagine the shit-eating grin Richie most certainly has on, his cheeks smushed up against his glasses and his adorable teeth on full display. His belly laugh is rich and full and warm. “Well now I want to hang up just to spite you.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes, shaking his head in exasperation. He turns onto the garage’s driveway, pulling his car around to the back before he slides into park. He doesn’t move to turn the engine off. It’s peaceful, for one, alone in his car with the early morning light stretching along the sky, but it’s almost a necessity to stay where he is. Richie’s voice is overwhelming enough through the speakers of the car, Eddie isn’t sure he’ll survive that laugh directly into his ear. So he sits, and he watches the clock tick down, and feels so much he can’t breathe. 

“You’re an asshole,” he says instead of the hundreds of other things he wants to. Things like _I love you_ and _I want you_ and _I’m terrified of what I could do to you._ “It’s like you live to make me mad.” 

“It is, in fact, one of my life’s missions,” Richie says, solemn. “I have sworn to fulfill it or else I will be sniped where I stand.” 

Eddie snorts. Finally, he reaches to turn his engine off, bringing his phone up to his ear and grabbing his bag from the passenger seat. “Don’t get sniped, asshole. If anyone’s ever killing you, it’s me. You can’t take that from me, I’ve earned it.” 

Eddie has seen Richie laugh almost every day since he was six years old. He’s heard it even more. He will see and hear it until the day he dies, if he has any say in it. And every time, it knocks the breath right out of his lungs. To be able to see Richie laugh up close is like looking into the sun: too bright to look directly at, beautiful enough to make you shield your eyes from the damage. Hearing him laugh, directly into Eddie’s ear, is like bathing in the sunshine instead. It’s objectively ridiculous but incredibly endearing all the same, a goose’s honk and cackle of a laugh, and it’s warm and comforting and sweet. It makes Eddie feel weightless, especially to know that _he_ is the one that has caused it. 

Richie giggles. It washes over Eddie from head to toe. “Careful there, Eds, don’t sound so excited. You’ll make me think you’re actually gearing up to murder me.” 

Eddie jams his phone into his shoulder, holding it there with his ear as he unlocks the back door to the garage. He flicks on lights as he goes until he gets to his office, falling into his desk chair with a sigh. “That's because I _am_ gearing up to murder you. Prepare to die, motherfucker.” Before Richie can respond, Eddie grips the phone tighter in his hand and tells him, “I just sat down in my office.” 

He doesn’t think he imagines the disappointed huff Richie gives. “Just when we were getting to the good stuff.” He pauses, then says, quieter, “What’ve you got on the docket today?” 

Eddie sighs and glances down at the paperwork on his desk, his mouth pulling into a grimace at the thought. “A fuck ton of paperwork for now. Need to run some quotes, order some parts, that kind of stuff. Boring shit, really.” 

Richie hums. The phone rustles like he’s moving around too much. “You’re not working on any cars today?” 

Eddie smiles, despite himself. He leans back in his chair, closing his eyes. If he tries hard enough, he can pretend that Richie is here and not on the other end of the phone, his eyes wild and his handsome face bright. “I will later, probably,” he admits, his eyes still closed. He’s savoring the mental image. “Danny brought in a restoration project that I’ve been dying to get my hands on.” 

There’s a slight pause. Richie sounds vaguely breathless when he says, “Damn, a greased up Eddie Spaghetti? Can I come watch?” 

Eddie scoffs, even as his heart squeezes. He should be used to Richie’s flirting by now, but every time it bowls him over as easily as the first. “Don’t call me that. And you aren’t stepping fucking foot in my garage, Tozier. Not after last time.” 

Richie whines. It’s a joking noise, one that he’s made thousands of times before, but the heightened instincts still snarling in Eddie’s chest react as if it was a real noise of distress. Eddie’s hackles rise, his eyes snapping open, his spine stiffening and his shoulders straightening out. He has to dig his nails into his thigh to calm down, breathing through his nose until he’s managed to force his instincts back enough. 

Richie is still talking when he comes back into himself, rambling the way he does when he gets particularly excited. Eddie just hopes he hadn’t noticed his silence. “—And I didn’t even mean to! It was just sitting right there. What else was I supposed to do? _Not_ skateboard on the dolley? Yeah, like I could do that. Everything was fine, anyways! I didn’t break anything!” 

Eddie huffs a laugh through his nose. He’s exhausted suddenly, a low-level headache thrumming behind his eyes. “Except yourself,” he reminds Richie, his voice softer than he intended it to be. He clears his throat, bringing a hand up to rub at his brow. “I was the one that cleaned up your hands, dipshit.” 

“Which healed exceptionally well, thank you to Doctor K.” Richie laughs. This time, it washes through Eddie straight into his chest, soothing the gnarled part of him still reeling at the thought of Richie hurt. “Am I keeping you from work? You can hang up if you need to, I don’t mind. I’m just putting the finishing touches before I head to the station in an hour.” 

Eddie glances down at his paperwork again, then out the window in his office to the row of cars needing to be looked at. He definitely has work he needs to get done, some that should probably be done as soon as possible, but— “No,” he says, quietly. “It can wait. Tell me about your segment today?” 

He can hear the smile in Richie’s voice. “You’re gonna listen to it in a couple of hours.” 

Eddie shrugs. “Tell me anyways.” 

There’s a pause, the silence stretching for one, two, three seconds before Richie murmurs, “Okay, Eds.” His voice is soft and sweet. Warm. 

Eddie closes his eyes again, holding his phone tight to his ear. Richie’s right; he will hear this later, because he listens to every single one of Richie’s segments, blasting the radio through the garage. But the words aren’t what’s important right now. It’s Richie’s voice, low and gorgeous, and the knowledge that he’s on the other side of the phone. It’s having Richie as close as he can really have him right now. 

Eddie tips his head back against his chair. Richie’s voice slides into his veins. Eddie breathes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come be my friend on [twitter](https://twitter.com/19tozier) or [tumblr](https://19tozier.tumblr.com)
> 
> i love u


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0HznzwPDQOAeJZCQt8EYDT)
> 
> this one's a lot heavier folks, sorry in advance
> 
> chapter content warnings: character injury, references to physical assault, description of blood/bruising (not super graphic but its there), character in subdrop, mention of police + their incompetence, emotional distress 
> 
> (there is a lot of angst in this chapter but i promise its not as horrible as the warnings make it seem. also it only goes up from here)

It is, in Eddie’s humble opinion, a fact that he would be nothing without his friends. 

It’s not a thought that he would ever share. He’s certain of how that would go over and the way that his friends would trip over themselves to tell him he doesn’t need anyone. That he is perfectly capable without anyone else behind him, that he stands firm on his own two feet without needing to lean on anyone. 

And that’s true. Eddie fought tooth and nail to get out from under his mother’s thumb to be who he is today. But he knows, with a quiet and firm conviction, that he would not have had the bravery to fight without the Losers at his side. The love he has for them filled him up so deeply that his mother couldn’t touch it, and it was with the Losers’ quiet support that he realized he had the ability to leave. 

He tries his best to see them as often as possible. It’s easier than it was when they were in college, all of them entirely too codependent and now all congregated in Chicago. Eddie almost doesn’t feel whole unless he’s got them around, the seven pieces of his soul scattered around the city. 

Ben sighs to him one afternoon, frowning down at their little table. They’re out to lunch together the way they always are on Tuesdays, in a sweet little cafe just down the street from Ben’s office. It’s the part of the week Eddie looks forward to most. 

“I wish we had longer,” he says, making a face when he glances at the clock. “These hour lunches just aren’t enough.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes, taking a sip of his coffee. “You only say that because you don’t want to go back to the office. I _told_ you that you should just tell this client to fuck off.” 

“And I told you that that is not an option,” Ben says, pleasantly. He spears a piece of watermelon on his fork, pointing it threateningly at Eddie. “Don’t you start. Between you and Bev, you’re going to get me fired.” 

“Can’t get fired if you’re the boss,” Eddie reminds him, grinning smugly over the rim of his mug. “You also get to choose your own lunch hours. Just a thought.” 

Ben sighs again, shaking his head. “I feel bad for Danny if this is how you are as a boss.” 

Eddie squawks, crumpling up his straw wrapper and flicking it at Ben’s forehead. Ben just laughs. “Fuck you, I’m a delight to work for. I’m the best damn boss in this whole fucking city.” 

Ben hums, smirking. Eddie sometimes wonders why they all think that Ben is innocent; he’s the sweetest soul Eddie knows, certainly, and he is the most sensitive of them all, but he can hold his own when it comes to the shit the other Losers constantly spew. “Second best boss in the city,” he grins, sniffing delicately. “Don’t forget who you’re talking to.” 

Eddie scowls at him, but the fight leaves him quickly thereafter. The back and forth is only fun if it’s with Richie. “What’s so bad about this client, anyways?” 

Ben sighs. He takes a long, measured sip from his own mug, then another, before he finally folds his hands and says, as sweetly as he can, “They are making my life an absolute nightmare. Their plans are constantly changing, they never return my calls, they don’t read my emails. If they weren’t such a high-profile client, I’d have dropped them by now.” 

“You should drop them anyways.” At Ben’s glare, Eddie raises his hands in surrender, grinning. “Alright, alright, I get it. Sorry I asked. Can I ask you about the wedding or is that too much stress too?” 

Ben’s face breaks open, pure joy shining out of every pore. His smile turns soft and sweet, the way it always does when he talks about Bev or their upcoming wedding. It always warms Eddie’s heart, the knowledge that his friends are happy and in love, at the same time that his chest tightens with jealousy. 

“We can talk about the wedding,” Ben says, grinning so hard he almost can’t talk. “We finalized the venue this weekend. That was all that was left on the list, really. You already know everything else.” 

Eddie does know. It’s hard, sometimes, to be Ben’s best man, because to be so intimately involved in the planning of a wedding makes it difficult to remove himself or his feelings from it. He watches Ben and Bev pick colors and flowers and he thinks about what his own wedding might look like. He thinks about what would happen if he could marry Richie. His mind whirls with images of standing at the altar waiting for him or walking down the aisle to meet him instead. He thinks about the two of them bickering over their suits and their rings and he thinks about a simpler world where it could actually happen. _Would_ actually happen.

“I know,” he says, forcing himself to grin past the snarl in his chest. “Distracted you though, didn't it?” 

Ben shrugs, his smile still firmly in place. “Is it really a distraction if you tell me it’s a distraction? Because I don’t think that’s how distractions work.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes, lazily flipping Ben off with the hand he has cupped around his coffee mug. “I’ll leave right now, don’t even fucking test me. Do you want to go back to your awful client early? Because I can make that happen.” 

Ben just laughs at him, shaking his head. “You wouldn’t dare.” 

They lapse into silence after that, picking at the remains of their food and chugging their last remnants of coffee before their self-allocated hour is up. Eddie always finds himself sad when lunch is over; as much as he loves his work, as much as he loves the garage and all it stands for, he loves his friends more, and his one-on-one time with Ben always makes him feel calmer than he’d been before he got there. He’s basking in that calm when Ben clears his throat. 

“So,” he starts, smiling at their waitress when she comes to take their plates away. So much for that calm; Eddie is already certain he will hate whatever it is that comes out of Ben’s mouth. “How are things with you and Richie?” he asks, very carefully. He takes a sip from his coffee as if it will make his question seem more casual. 

Eddie groans, dropping his elbows onto the table and his face into his hands. His instincts rattle against his ribcage. “Fuck, not you too.” 

Ben laughs, easy, as if he is not tearing Eddie apart with his words. “Sorry, sorry, I just worry about you! About all of you,” he amends when Eddie shoots him a sharp look. “I worry about all of our friends. And I just haven’t seen much of you lately!” 

Eddie raises an eyebrow, pointedly glancing down at the table and then back up. “We are at lunch together right now. We go to lunch together every Tuesday. We’ve had two different group hangouts in the past like, three weeks. You see me a lot, actually.” 

But Ben shakes his head, his expression turning a little bit more serious. “I know, but you’ve just seemed distant lately. Like there’s a wall between you and us. Well, between you and everyone else but Richie.” 

It shouldn’t startle Eddie anymore, how forward and honest Ben usually is. He knows Ben means well but life is not as simple for Eddie as it was for him. Eddie, logically, knows that that is a bit of an asshole thought to have, since the road Bev and Ben had to take to get where they are was by no means easy, but Eddie can’t help but feel it anyways. Theirs was a love story fit for a fairytale. Eddie’s is a story fit for a horror movie, starring himself as the monster. 

“Does everybody know?” Eddie asks, miserable. 

Ben looks a little sad at that, reaching across the table to grab one of Eddie’s hands. “I can’t speak for anyone other than me,” he says quietly, “but it’s always been a little obvious. The way you two were when we were kids...” He shakes his head, laughing slightly. “You two just have a connection. That’s all I really know.”

Eddie squeezes his eyes shut, nodding tightly. “Yeah, that’s—that’s certainly one word for it.” 

There’s a squeeze around his hand, quick and warm. Ben’s voice is gentle when he quietly murmurs, “I’m not going to try and tell you what to do, or pretend to understand exactly how you feel. I just want you to be happy. You’re one of my best friends, Eddie, and you’ve been through a lot. You deserve some good.” 

Tears burn in the back of Eddie’s throat, thick and hot and choking. He does his best to hold them back, gritting his teeth until his jaw aches. “I didn’t come here to have a breakdown, Ben, what the hell.” 

Ben huffs a laugh. He smooths his thumb over Eddie’s knuckles. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry. Are you alright?” 

Eddie gives a jerky nod, swiping under his eyes to catch the few stray tears that have leaked out. “I’m fine. You just caught me off-guard, that’s all.” 

Ben looks thoroughly unconvinced when Eddie blinks his eyes open to look at him, concern set in the curve of his jaw and the set of his brow. But, because he’s an angel, he lets Eddie get away with the deflection, patting his hand once before he throws another look at the clock on the wall. 

“Think Danny will mind if you’re later than an hour?” he asks, shrugging his jacket on and standing up from their booth. 

Eddie frowns, standing up after him. He feels shaky, weak and a little worn-down, but not enough that he’d accept if Ben told him to go home. “I could call him to make sure, but I don’t think so. Why?” 

Ben just smiles, counting out a few bills from his wallet and leaving them on the table. He waves Eddie away when he tries to add his own money to the pile. “Come take a drive with me?” 

Eddie’s brow furrows, his shoulder bumping into Ben’s when they fall into step beside each other on the walk back to Ben’s office building. “I thought you needed to get back to that client?” 

Ben shrugs, offering him an easy smile. “This is more important.”

Eddie swallows. It’s difficult to ever let his friends take care of him, his brain screaming whenever he lets his guard down even the slightest bit, certain that if he does his mother will somehow manage to squirm back in and poison the person he has managed to grow into. His mother is long since dead and gone but it is, on principle, still hard to accept that he does not have to be strong all of the time. 

“Alright,” he says, small. “If you’re sure.” 

Ben’s smile stretches into a grin. “I’m sure. Do you want to hear more about that client?” 

Eddie nods. He lets the sound of Ben’s voice wash over him, hoping it will be enough to keep him from falling apart.

* * *

Stan and Eddie have always shared a link that completely baffles the other Losers. 

In another life, in another universe, Eddie thinks that he and Stan were bound together by something far bigger than they could ever comprehend, and even if it hasn’t happened in this world Eddie feels the effects of it all the same. He and Stan have an otherworldly connection that Eddie cannot describe; they know, instinctively, subconsciously, irrationally, where the other person is and how they are doing at all times. Richie jokingly calls them spidey senses. Eddie will say he’s an idiot but not wrong.

Up until now, they’ve always been more of a joke. A party trick, honestly. It usually just means that if secrets need to be kept from Eddie or Stan, then the other can’t be told, as decreed after the disastrous attempts to throw Stan a surprise birthday party several years ago. He’d walked in while they were still setting up, shrugging, just to say, “I could feel Eddie was here with Patty. It was either a party or me and Eddie were going to have to fight.” 

Eddie is up late that night, answering the emails that he hadn’t gotten to after his and Ben’s lunch. He’s enjoying a glass of wine when his spine straightens out of instinct. The back of his neck prickles, the feeling he has come to associate exclusively with _Stan_ sending goose flesh over his skin. Seconds later, his phone vibrates with Stan’s call. 

Eddie’s brow furrows, because it’s late at night and usually by now Stan and Patty are asleep. He wants to write it off as a joke but the unease filtering through his blood makes him hyper aware that it is not. 

“Hello?” 

Stan says, _“Eddie,”_ and something inside of Eddie’s chest starts ringing alarm bells. Stan sounds panicked and fuzzy, distress obvious in his voice, and this is something Eddie has never heard from him before. 

“Stan? Stan, what’s wrong?” He probably sounds too intense, too much for whatever Stan is going through, and he’s confused as to why he’s the one that Stan is calling, but—

Stan sobs, a single sharp sound, and Eddie’s blood goes cold. “It’s Richie,” he manages to get out, his breath wheezing. “He’s hurt, and it’s bad, and _Eddie_ , he needs—“

Eddie’s already out of his chair, was moving the second that Richie’s name left Stan’s mouth, pouring the wine down the sink and rushing to grab his coat. His keys and his wallet are in his hand before Stan can even finish talking. “I’m on my way, Stan, I’m coming, alright? It’s going to be okay.” 

Stan whimpers, a noise that Eddie hasn’t ever heard, and he’s hit with the knowledge that Stan is going under. Not from a scene, not from the safety of Patty, but from fear, pure and utter terror. He’s afraid because of Richie, because Richie’s hurt, and that has to mean that it’s not just a few scrapes. No, Richie is injured in a way that incites panic, and Eddie’s hands are shaking. 

He wants nothing more than to scream but he forces his voice as gentle as he can, murmuring to Stan, “It’s okay, it’s going to be okay. I’m coming, I’m on my way, I’ll be there as soon as possible. Is Patty there with you?” 

Stan exhales shakily, another whine building in his throat, but he manages to croak, “Yeah. Yeah, she’s here.” 

Relief floods through Eddie’s veins, almost making his knees buckle. “Good, that’s so good. I’ll be right there, okay? I’m coming, Stan.”

He doesn’t hear Stan’s goodbye. He doesn’t feel himself leave the apartment or lock the door behind him. He doesn’t notice himself getting into his car; his brain is running on an endless loop of _Richie get to Richie Richie is hurt **Richie**_.

Later, he will not remember getting to Patty and Stan’s apartment. It is like he closed his eyes and suddenly he was in front of their door, robotically knocking and trembling so hard his organs feel like they are being knocked loose. He is fully outside of his own body. He feels like he is not a person anymore, only a snarled tangle of emotions and instincts and thoughts. 

Patty’s face is drawn when she opens the door. She doesn’t greet him, just ushers him inside and slams the door behind him. She grabs his wrist before he can get too far into the apartment, holding him there even when he tries to pull away, tries to find Richie and help him. 

“It’s bad, Eddie,” Patty echoes what Stan had said over the phone, and the world drops into place around him. It clears his brain enough that he isn’t being driven by his emotions anymore. 

“What happened?” His voice is low. 

Patty sighs, pulling him along with her to the guest bedroom. The door is only slightly cracked, and Eddie cannot hear anything happening behind it. “We don’t know,” she tells him quietly. “He just showed up at our door like this. He wasn’t responding to me so we called you.” 

Eddie swallows, staring at the door. His pulse is roaring in his ears, loud and pervasive, but he manages to croak out, “Why did you call me? Why not Bev or Mike?” 

Patty looks at him, surprised. Whatever is showing in his face must be bad because her expression crumples, sadness mixing with the anger and grief already there. Her hand is soft when it drifts to grip his shoulder. 

“Who else would we trust with him?” she murmurs. 

It tightens Eddie’s throat, the implications behind her words, but before he can process it Patty reaches out to push the door open. 

The first thing he can see is Stan, curled up on the floor just a pace or two inside of the room. He’s shaking, his shoulders trembling, and his gaze is fixed on the corner of the room. Eddie follows his eyes and draws in a ragged gasp, his stomach curdling and his blood running cold. 

Stan and Patty were right: it’s bad. 

Even from the doorway, Eddie can tell Richie’s covered in bruising. There’s a purpling mark on his neck and jaw, another swelling his eye behind his cracked glasses. There are tiny cuts across his face, one weeping on his cheekbone and another across the bridge of his nose, his lip split and swollen and painful. Eddie can’t see much more than that, because Richie is curled in on himself, rocking slightly back and forth, and his arms are curled protectively around his own chest. Instinctively and subconsciously, he’s making himself as small as he absolutely can. 

Rage, thick and cloying and hot, burns inside of Eddie’s throat, so strongly that for a moment his vision bleeds red. Fury like he has never known it before at the audacity of anyone to ever touch Richie like this, to ever hurt him and terrify him so bad that he is catatonic with it. His fists ache to feel the crunch of bone beneath them, his teeth itch to rip into whoever did this, but the idea of leaving Richie when he’s like this sets him ablaze. 

He walks closer, as slow as he can, because he doesn’t want to shock Richie further. It’s futile, to be honest, because Richie doesn’t even glance at him, doesn’t stop rocking at all. He can feel the terrified gazes of Stan and Patty on his back as he slowly sinks to his knees in front of Richie. 

It’s worse up close, the blood staining his skin and his clothes, the rips in his shirt, the pallor of his face. The bruising is already darkening, bad enough that some of them are turning black, and Eddie is so furious again that for a moment it chokes him. But he pushes it down, draws it deep into his stomach, and drops his head to look into Richie’s face. 

Richie’s expression is completely and utterly vacant, his eyes glassy and staring unseeing down at the floor. There is no recognition anywhere on his face, nothing to suggest he even knows where or who he is. 

It’s the worst case of subdrop Eddie has ever seen. 

He swallows, fisting his hands in his lap to keep from reaching out. He wants nothing more than to pull Richie into his arms, hold him close and comfort him, but doing so will likely traumatize him further when he’s like this. Eddie has to approach this as carefully as he can. 

He keeps his voice as soft and as gentle as he has ever heard it, murmuring, “Hi, Richie. It’s Eddie.” There is a pause in the way Richie rocks himself, a subtle halt before he resumes. That’s a good sign. “That’s it baby, can you hear my voice? Just focus on my voice, sweetheart, everything’s okay. You’re okay, Rich, you’re safe, you’re in Patty and Stan’s apartment, you’re alright. No one’s going to hurt you. Just listen to my voice, baby, I promise you everything is alright.” 

Slowly, painfully slowly, Richie’s rocking comes to a stop. His face is still blank and his eyes still stare into nothing, but it is enough that he’s responding. 

Eddie smiles, sad and small and helpless. There are tears building in his eyes, an aching tightness in his throat, but he pushes on. “That’s it, sweetheart, you’re doing so good. You’re _so_ good, Richie, you’re doing perfect. Can you come back to me, baby? Just a little, it’s okay. You’re safe, no one is going to hurt you, you’re safe.” 

Richie gives a shuddering breath, blinking a couple of times. His arms go limp into his lap, and the slightest bit of light comes back into his eyes. He makes a soft sound in the back of his throat, blinking again. 

Eddie nearly collapses in relief, swallowing back a sob. Pride shines warm in his chest and he lets it color his voice. “You’re so good, baby, you’re listening so well. Just keep focusing on my voice, alright? You don’t have to think of anything but my voice. Everything’s alright now Rich, I promise you. Do you know where you are? You’re here in Patty and Stan’s apartment, you’re with Eddie, you’re safe.” He takes a deep breath, trying to hold his composure. 

Richie makes that same soft sound again, almost a whimper, and slowly he turns his head in Eddie’s direction. His eyes are still so glassy, tears beginning to leak from them. He gives a low, distressed whine, one that makes Eddie want to wrap him up and never let him go. 

“You’re safe, baby. Just focus on my voice. Focus on me. Can you hear me, Rich? Nod your head if you can hear me, sweetheart.” 

There is a long, agonizing moment in which Richie doesn’t move, and then he gives a slow, jerky nod. Eddie can’t stop the sob this time. 

“Thank you, you’re doing so well. Stretch your legs out for me now, darling. Slowly, slowly, it’s okay.” 

Richie’s movements are uncoordinated and halting, his legs sliding forward in starts and stops. There’s something there, something lurking at the edges of Richie’s expression, and Eddie feels sick when he realizes it’s pain. The terrifying numbness from before at least masked the agony he has to be in, for him to be so badly beaten up. He’s blinking quicker now, his jaw working like he wants to talk. His eyes are a little bit clearer, still not looking at Eddie directly, fixated somewhere around Eddie’s chin. But it’s all progress. Pulling him up too quickly is going to do nothing but scare him, but letting him sit in subdrop isn’t an option either. 

Eddie exhales shakily, bringing a trembling hand to his face to cover his mouth for just a moment. He squeezes his eyes shut, clenches his jaw until the tears gathering behind his eyes disappear, and opens them again. “You’re so good, Richie,” he murmurs, his voice rough with emotion. “You’re doing so well. I’m so proud of you, sweetheart. Where are you, baby? Are you here with me?” 

Richie whines again, the sound seemingly ripped from his chest, and Stan gives a sobbed curse from behind him. It is an instinctual sound, terrified and pleading all in one, because Richie is lost. Something happened that threw him headfirst into subdrop with no way to protect himself, and now Richie’s shoulders hunch in further, his body cowering, his fingers tightening their hold on his own wrist. 

Eddie nearly folds over himself in his haste to fix it, his hands shooting out before he remembers. He forces himself to drop them into his lap. “It’s alright, baby, I swear it’s alright. I’m here, Richie. I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere. You’re safe, sweetheart. I’m not going to let anything else happen to you.” 

He feels useless, clumsy and too big for his body, obviously not any kind of help to anyone, and he thinks he should step back and let Patty handle this, but the thought of letting anyone else near Richie right now makes his heart stutter in his chest. 

“Deep breaths, sweetheart,” he murmurs, trying to keep the strain out of his voice. The last thing he needs is for Richie to think he’s upset and crash further. Now that Richie is at least semi-aware again, he needs to pull him the rest of the way up. “Make a fist for me, baby. Good, that’s good. Now open it again. You’re doing great, Rich. Can I see your other hand? I won’t touch you, I promise. Make a fist, sweetheart. Open it. Wriggle your fingers a bit. Thank you, sweetest. You’re so good. Can you come back to me, love? You’re safe, I promise nothing is going to hurt you.”

Richie’s chin tilts up, just barely. He’d followed through every single one of Eddie’s orders mechanically, unthinkingly, and Eddie can see his eyes still aren’t all there, but there’s more movement in the flex of his fingers and tremble of his legs. Eddie just keeps murmuring to him as softly as he has ever heard his own voice, praise and promise mixed into one, trying to prove that Richie is safe and that Eddie will do everything to protect him. The room holds its breath until Richie, some indeterminate time later, gives a rough shudder and finally lifts his head to meet Eddie’s eyes. 

“Eds?” he rasps, his voice wobbly and barely there. Still in the doorway, Patty and Stan sob. 

Eddie almost collapses in relief, his own throat tight with sobs that make his chest ache. He swallows them down, pastes on a shaky smile, and murmurs, “Hi, Rich.” 

Richie blinks. His expression is dazed, cloudy and confused, pulling into a frown when his eyes slowly slide around the room and then down to his own arms. Eddie isn’t entirely certain how much he’s actually seeing. His mouth works open and closed but nothing comes out. He’s still so obviously not all there, even if he’s no longer catatonic, and if Eddie doesn’t divert his own brain as quickly as he can he’s not entirely sure what he’ll do. There’s still rage burning hot in his belly, his instincts are still snapping in his chest in a way that begs to be let out. What Richie needs right now is someone gentle, someone who can love him and take care of him the way he needs. He doesn’t need Eddie. 

Feeling his heart crack open, Eddie readies to push himself up. He can make himself useful somewhere else, he reasons, let Patty work on getting Richie calm again. He’ll grab Richie some food, some water, and then he’ll leave. It’s for the best. 

Except the second Eddie moves, Richie’s hand shoots out to wrap around his wrist. Eddie stills, staring down at where their skin touches, feeling his lungs shut down. He can just barely flick his eyes up to see Richie’s frown before he croaks again, “Eds.”

All of Eddie’s breath rushes out of his lungs. His chest gives a violent scream. “Yeah, Rich,” he whispers, not strong enough to be any louder. “It’s me. I’m here.”

Richie’s grip tightens. His face flashes, his brain obviously struggling through the fog of subdrop, before he manages to say, “Stay.”

Eddie’s heart thumps hard against his rib cage, working overtime in an attempt to rip free and nestle into Richie’s palms. He swallows, forcing himself to nod. He is still terrified of himself and everything he could do to fuck this up, but he manages to shove it down enough to look over at Patty, still standing in the doorway. 

“Can you bring us some food?” he asks her, quiet. “Something with sugar. Fruit, maybe, if you have it. And a bottle of water.” He stops, lets his eyes flicker over the bruises on Richie’s face, and then croaks, “And some ice.” 

Patty’s lips press together. She doesn’t seem keen on leaving, likely wanting to keep Richie in her sights, but she just nods and slips her arm around Stan’s waist to tug him out of the doorway and down the hall. 

For a brief, fragile moment, the entire world comes to a standstill. There is just Eddie and the instincts battering around in his chest and the faint trembling of the hand Richie still has wrapped around his wrist. He needs food and water, maybe a shower. At the very least he needs clean clothes and Eddie is desperate to take a look at his injuries. But before all of that can happen—

“Can I touch you, sweetheart?” Eddie murmurs, keeping his voice pitched as soft and gentle as he can. Richie blinks at him. “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. You’re safe now.” 

Even before Eddie is finished talking, Richie makes that same soft sound in his throat and crumples into him, nearly face-planting directly into Eddie’s lap. Eddie swallows down his swear and curves an arm around Richie’s back, hauling him up and over until he’s got Richie bundled against his chest, forehead pressed tight against his jaw, huge body curled vulnerable and small between the bracket of Eddie’s legs. His hand fists into Eddie’s shirt, keeping him close. The other is still wrapped around Eddie’s wrist. 

Eddie’s palm naturally falls to the small of Richie’s back, holding Richie against his chest. The other twists in Richie’s hold to thread their fingers together, letting them fall to rest against Richie’s stomach. Eddie is out of words, his throat locked tight around anything he could try to say, but Richie has never liked silence, Richie has never done well with only his own thoughts to keep him company and Eddie knows his brain must not be making sense right now so he’s got to be terrified. He does the only thing he can really think of: he shifts until his lips are pressed against Richie’s temple, softly humming a song he’d heard Richie play on the radio earlier. He feels the way it makes Richie sag against him. 

They sit there until Patty comes back. Eddie doesn’t stop humming, starting a new song when he comes to the end of the first one, stroking his knuckles up and down the length of Richie’s spine. He desperately hopes that he’s helping. He desperately hopes that he’s enough. 

A noise comes from the doorway. Eddie looks up to find Patty standing there, her arms laden with bottles and bowls and plates, her expression warm. She comes to them slowly, obviously trying not to spook Richie further, and Eddie has never loved her more. She carefully puts the plates and bowls down to Eddie’s right, close enough that he can reach without having to disturb Richie. 

Before she leaves again, she grabs Eddie’s hand. She doesn’t say anything, just looks deep into his eyes and then leans forward to kiss his forehead. The door clicks shut behind her. 

Richie makes a small noise in the back of his throat, not scared like before but something different, something softer. He curls himself impossibly closer, burrowing into Eddie’s chest like he could climb right inside his rib cage and make a home there. Eddie would let him, if he tried. He’d let Richie do anything he wanted. 

But that line of thinking isn’t conducive, so Eddie locks it tight behind his teeth, reaching to pull Patty’s offerings closer to him. In one bowl, wrapped with a dish towel, sits a plastic bag filled with ice. Eddie puts all of that to the side for now. The other bowl, the bigger one, is full of fresh fruit, red strawberries and slices of apple and melon. Beside it is a small plate with little cubes of cheese. It’s all the kind of food fit to give a sub after a scene, sugar and fat and everything designed to stop a crash. Food Richie should’ve had earlier, before he could fall into the dangerous throes of subdrop, but its presence now will, hopefully, stop him from crashing further. 

Before he reaches for the food, Eddie grabs for the bottle of water, finding the cap already loosened and ready. He spins it off with one hand, shifting until Richie is propped up more against his shoulder, sitting up more instead of laying down. Richie whines softly, blinking his pretty eyes open with something that looks like a pout. 

“I know, sweetheart,” Eddie murmurs to him, turning his head to breathe his words into Richie’s hair. “You can rest soon, I promise. I just need you to drink some water for me first.” 

Richie blinks at the water bottle, his expression so heart-wrenchingly lost. When his hand reaches out, it’s limp enough that if Eddie were to let go, the water would completely soak them. He keeps his grip, helping Richie lift the bottle to his lips and tipping it back gently until he can drink from it. Richie’s eyes slip half-closed. 

When the water bottle is empty, Eddie puts it aside, drawing the bowl of fruit and plate of cheese closer in its place. He spears a piece of strawberry on the fork Patty brought and brings it up to Richie’s lips, his heart seizing when Richie eats it with no hesitation. He’s always known that Richie trusts him, he knows he’s Richie’s best friend and that they would kill or die for each other, but this display of it makes him feel like he can’t breathe. Here Richie is, terrified and traumatized and hurt, still trusting Eddie as fiercely as ever. He marvels, not for the first time, how Richie can be so certain that Eddie will not hurt him. 

He continues like that, alternating between the fruit and the cheese, until Richie makes a small noise and turns his face into Eddie’s shoulder. He’s only gotten about half-way through the food but Eddie doesn’t want to overwhelm him, not in this fragile state. 

“Thank you, sweetheart,” he murmurs, putting the fork down to card his fingers through Richie’s hair. “You’re doing so well for me, I promise we can lay down in a minute. Is it okay if I look at your bruises now?” 

Richie goes still. He doesn’t respond for several long moments, long enough that Eddie is terrified he’s slipping under again, before he gives a single quick nod. 

Eddie lets out a heavy breath, relief pouring through him. He goes to pull away but can’t get far, Richie’s hands tightening their grip on his shirt and around his wrist. Richie whines, ducking his head to press his nose into the hollow of Eddie’s throat, twisting himself impossibly closer. It’s got to be hell on the bruising on his face, especially if he has injuries where Eddie can’t see, but Eddie isn’t strong-willed enough to pull him away. It soothes the part of him that’s still gnashing its teeth, the part that aches to find out what happened and then tear the person who did it limb from limb; that is the part that calms down to have Richie pressed close, protected within the circle of his arms, where no more harm can come to him. In this quiet moment, he dares to hope it calms Richie too.

“Baby,” he breathes, tightening his own grip despite himself. “You have to let go for a minute. I can’t look at your bruising like this.”

But now Richie shakes his head, his curls brushing Eddie’s chin. “Warm,” he mumbles. “Safe.”

Eddie is so stricken with emotion that for a moment he cannot breathe with it. His voice is strangled when he manages to murmur, “We can get in bed and cuddle as soon as I’m done, sweetheart. I promise.”

Richie, very carefully, holds out one hand. His pinky is raised. 

If it’s possible, Eddie falls in love even more. His heart absolutely melts, warmth spreading down into his belly and through his veins as he, equally as carefully, hooks his pinky around Richie’s. “I promise,” he says again, solemn. 

Satisfied, Richie slowly lets him go enough that he can push himself into a crouch, grabbing for the supplies he needs and standing up. He helps Richie stand, slinging an arm around his waist to keep him upright, and carefully walks them to the small bathroom connected to the guest room, taking as much of Richie’s weight as he absolutely can. Richie’s still shaky, weak and exhausted, his legs stumbling even in the small distance they have to go. Eddie gets him into the bathroom and safely sat on the toilet as quickly as he dares. 

Richie blinks up at him. In the harsh light of the bathroom, his bruising stands out in even sharper relief, his skin flaked with dried blood. Eddie has to bite down on his cheek until he tastes metal just to keep his anger in check. 

“I’m going to wash the blood off first, okay?” he tells Richie quietly, hoping that a running narration will not only help keep Richie calm but keep his own head level as well. “I’ll be gentle.” 

Richie’s eyes don’t leave his face, even when he turns to the sink to soak a soft washcloth in warm water. It’s a lot, the force of Richie’s attention like this, because Eddie has to wonder what he’s seeing and how much he’s processing. If he even knows what’s going on or if the haze of subdrop has completely fogged over his brain. 

He kneels in between Richie’s legs. It’ll be hell on his knees and his back but he can’t bring himself to get any further away, everything inside of him screaming now that Richie isn’t safely tucked in against his chest. Like this, the press of Richie’s knees on either side of his ribs, the heat of his skin inches from Eddie’s own, that screaming quiets enough that Eddie can focus. 

He reaches for Richie as slowly as he absolutely can, trying his hardest not to frighten him further, and when Richie doesn’t flinch Eddie swipes the corner of the washcloth along his cheekbone and then to the bridge of his nose. The warmth of the cloth probably feels nice, judging from Richie’s sigh and the way his eyes go half-lidded, leaning into the touch and turning his face into Eddie’s palm. Eddie’s heart flutters. 

He’s even more gentle when he touches Richie’s lip, where the split in the skin is angry and already swollen. Richie hisses even at the barest hint of pressure, a short whimper getting caught in his throat, and Eddie stumbles over himself to apologize even as he has to keep going. He’s quick to bring the dish towel of ice to the wound, thankful when it seems to help dull a little bit of the pain. 

There is a horrible image in his head, one of his mother crouched in front of him, telling him she was just trying to help even while doing something that did the complete opposite. It is hard, in this vulnerable moment where rage is all he can taste, to not think of himself as the product of his mother’s influence. 

“There, all clean,” he says softly. His hand fits carefully around the uninjured side of Richie’s face. “I’m going to grab some bandaids, okay? And some bruise cream.”

Eddie waits until Richie nods before he moves, even if it’s just to rummage in the cabinet below the sink. He’s hesitant to let his guard down even in the slightest, despite how Richie is responsive enough now that he’s likely not in danger of dropping just from Eddie’s attention shifting for a minute. Part of him is irrationally convinced that if he looks away, he’ll look back to find Richie as vacant and silent as he’d been when he first got here. 

Richie’s eyes are closed when Eddie turns back to him, but he blinks them open before Eddie even has time to panic. He looks exhausted, the skin under his eyes dark enough that they almost look like more bruising. He desperately needs rest after everything he’s been through tonight, so Eddie rushes through the rest of what he’d wanted to do, slipping Richie’s glasses off and smoothing bandaids over the little cuts and spreading an even layer of bruise cream over every mark he can find until finally, Richie’s as fixed up as Eddie thinks he can be. 

“All done,” Eddie murmurs, putting the cap on the bruise cream. Richie makes a tiny sound. “I know love, time for the sleep I promised.” 

But Richie’s hand around his wrist stops him from moving. His breath catches in his throat, staring into Richie’s sleepy expression for a brief moment before Richie makes the same tiny sound again and pulls Eddie up to bury his face into Eddie’s stomach, the cold of the melting ice shocking even through several layers. Eddie should pull him away, at least shift him so he’s not putting pressure on his wounds, but his hands slide along Richie’s shoulders and into his hair without his conscious permission. He can’t stop himself from curving his own body down over Richie’s, pressing his lips into the top of Richie’s head and squeezing his eyes shut. 

He has no idea how long they stay there. Long enough that his back is protesting when he finally straightens, stroking his thumbs along the tender skin behind Richie’s ears as he murmurs, “Let’s get you into bed, sweetheart.” 

Richie’s even more pliant now, dropping the makeshift ice pack into the sink and letting Eddie take his weight again. Eddie swipes his glasses from the counter before turning the bathroom light off. 

Back in the bedroom, Eddie has a slight crisis over the dirty clothes Richie’s wearing before his eyes catch on two piles of clothing sitting at the foot of the bed. They weren’t there when they’d gone into the bathroom, and for a moment Eddie is overwhelmed with the love he feels for Patty and Stan. 

He’s gentle as he coaxes Richie into the pajamas, thankful that this at least is familiar after years of helping a drunk Richie home after a night of partying. He’s less careful with himself, yanking on his own borrowed pajamas before he ushers Richie into bed. 

He barely has enough time to put Richie’s glasses on the nightstand and turn the lamp off before Richie’s latching on to him, face burying into the crook of his neck and arms wrapping tight around his waist. Eddie holds him back just as fiercely, finally letting out the breath he’s been holding since Stan’s phone call. 

“Go to sleep, baby,” he whispers, pressing his lips firmly to Richie’s forehead. “You’re safe now.” 

For just a moment, just before Richie falls asleep, Eddie swears he can feel Richie’s lips press into his throat.

As Richie sleeps, Eddie seethes. 

The anger he has been valiantly trying to hold back the entire night is rearing its ugly head, not satisfied by the sweet weight of Richie against his chest. His instincts screech for whoever did this to pay, his skin buzzing with the need to find them. The only thing keeping him in this bed is the knowledge that moving would wake Richie up and his own reluctance to let Richie go. 

He doesn’t even know what the hell happened. He couldn’t have asked Richie to try and explain, not while he was so traumatized and still reeling with the effects of subdrop. Eddie’s hopeful they’ll be able to talk about it in the morning, but the morning is too far away to fix Eddie’s fury now. 

He breathes out harshly through his nose, pulling Richie in closer to his chest. Richie gives a sleepy little mumble, rubbing his nose against Eddie’s collarbone before settling back into sleep. It’s adorable, objectively, but for some reason it just adds to everything Eddie’s feeling because _he’s in love with Richie_ and _Richie can never be his._

It’s an agonizing thought. It’s not new, because Eddie has known since his dynamic results came back that he was destined to be alone, but every time he’s reminded of it it feels like a sucker punch to the gut. He’s never wanted anyone but Richie, he’ll never want anyone but Richie, and the one person he loves more than anything in the world is the one person he thinks he was always meant to be with. And isn’t that the kicker? That Eddie knows that him and Richie would be _good_ together, if only Eddie had the capacity to be a good Dom. 

Eddie tries to breathe. It hitches on the way in. 

His fury isn’t going away but it’s expanding, shifting to make room for the terror quickly filling him up. He’s absolutely fucking petrified that he did something wrong tonight, that he hurt Richie more when he was already so vulnerable. Eddie should’ve pushed harder for Patty to be the one to take care of Richie; she would’ve been better and Eddie knows that. She’s gentle and sweet where Eddie’s dominance will forever be too much, overbearing and overprotective and everything Richie wouldn’t want. She wouldn’t have run the risk of potentially traumatizing him more. She has experience with subs beyond one night stands the way that Eddie doesn’t and never will. She would have been _better_. 

But at the same time, Eddie is Richie’s best friend. No one in the world understands him better. Sometimes, Eddie thinks that him and Richie are two halves of the same whole. Sometimes, he wishes it could be that simple.

Eddie sighs into Richie’s hair. He’s exhausted too after such a long day, lunch with Ben and then the emotions of tonight draining him more than he thinks he can handle. But his instincts scream at him to keep watch over Richie for a while longer, both to ensure he’s still breathing and that nothing is going to come for him. Not when Eddie promised he’d be safe. 

He pushes as many of his emotions and thoughts away as he can. They don’t disappear, simply lurking in the corners of his brain, but for now he doesn’t care. He can deal with them later. The only thing he wants to focus on is the feeling of Richie’s skin against his own and the gentle rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. 

Eddie settles back down. He’ll keep watch for a little bit longer.

* * *

In the morning, Eddie wakes to an empty bed. 

For a moment, he doesn’t remember last night. He stretches his back out, cursing the ache he can feel in his spine, and wonders why he’s curled under the covers in Patty and Stan’s guest room. Then, as the world drops out of the hazy dreamlike quality of sleep, he sits straight up, feeling his heartbeat quicken. 

Richie isn’t anywhere in the room, nor is he in the bathroom. Eddie feels panic tighten his lungs, so certain that maybe something went wrong and Richie’s not okay, maybe he did something when he was bringing Richie out of subdrop and Richie’s upset with him, maybe—

And then he hears that familiar honking laugh from the kitchen, and his shoulders relax a fraction of an inch. 

Richie’s seated at the kitchen table when Eddie comes out of the guest room, begrudgingly redressed in last night’s clothing. He’s happily sipping at a cup of coffee and talking to Stan, Patty at the stove making her infamous cinnamon rolls. 

Eddie pauses in the doorway before any of them can see him. Richie’s bruising has darkened overnight, his split lip swollen and likely painful, but he’s smiling and much more animated than he’d been. He’s talking more, if still a little subdued, but he brightens when he finally catches sight of Eddie. Briefly, Eddie hopes that means he didn’t irreparably fuck anything up. 

“Spaghetti!” Richie crows, quieter than he should be but at least close to how he normally is. 

Slowly, Eddie goes to him, sliding into the seat to his left. He can’t take his eyes off of Richie’s face, even when he knows Patty and Stan are watching them and taking note of every interaction. He has to ball his hands into fists and shove them under his thighs to keep from reaching out for Richie. 

“How are you feeling?” he asks, soft. The gentleness in his voice and in his chest feels appropriate. 

Richie blinks at him, something unidentifiable flashing across his face before he pastes on a huge grin, shaking his head. “No serious talks until after breakfast. I need some Peppermint Patty cinnamon rolls in my belly first.” 

Patty laughs from the stove, turning to smile at them. “You only love me for my cinnamon rolls,” she teases, throwing them a wink. 

Stan nods, leaning back in his chair. Eddie can’t help but notice the way he’s angled towards Richie, something protective in the line of his shoulders. “You’re absolutely correct,” he says. “That’s exactly why I married you, babylove.” 

Patty rolls her eyes, pointing at him with her spatula. Even through the teasing, their expressions are wholly lovesick. It makes Eddie’s heart burn, them in front of him with Richie so close and yet completely untouchable. “You shush or you’re not getting any.” 

It’s so normal, this scene. It feels exactly like any other time they’ve all eaten breakfast together, like nothing at all is wrong. If Eddie keeps his head turned away from Richie he can almost convince himself that nothing _is_ wrong, but every time he catches a glimpse of Richie’s bruising from the corner of his eye that feeling completely crumples. He can’t pretend like everything is fine when there’s the distinct feeling like a bomb has gone off in his chest. Not when he thinks something has irreversibly shifted inside of him. He just doesn’t know what that something is. 

He can’t really focus on any of what’s going on around him. He can hear Patty and Stan and Richie’s voices but what they’re saying doesn’t register, going in one ear and out the other. He thinks he responds, thinks he hears Richie’s laugh at something he says, but Eddie’s just going through the motions. He eats the cinnamon rolls put in front of him, he drinks his orange juice, and tries to keep himself from going insane. 

“Thank you for breakfast, babylove,” Stan says after they’re finished eating, their plates already piled in the sink and all of them sat around the table. 

Richie smiles weakly, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. His shoulders are hunched around his ears. “Yeah, Pattycakes,” he rasps. “You knocked it out of the park. Can’t believe Staniel over here married you before I could.” 

Patty rolls her eyes, smiling softly. “You’re welcome, Rich. I’m just glad you’re feeling better.” 

The atmosphere of the kitchen shifts. Gone is the light-hearted joking of breakfast, replaced instead by the heaviness of what happened last night. Richie’s smile disappears, his face closing off and his body going tense. He shrinks into himself, shifting in his chair so that he’s angled, somehow, towards Eddie, like he thinks Eddie will protect him. 

Richie bites his lip, careful to avoid the puffed split in the middle. “I don’t suppose we can just forget that ever happened?” he asks weakly, trying for a smile that looks more like a grimace. 

Patty shakes her head, reaching across the table to pat Richie’s forearm. He tenses but doesn’t pull away. “Sorry, hon. We can’t do that.” 

“What happened last night?” Stan asks, his voice soft. His face is calm but his eyes blaze. 

Richie’s eyes flicker from Patty to Stan and back again, something hesitant lurking in his expression. Before he can talk himself out of it, Eddie reaches out and grabs Richie’s hand, threading their fingers together. He doesn’t think he’s imagining the way that Richie’s shoulders relax. 

“I, uh.” Richie clears his throat, his grip tightening on Eddie’s fingers to the point it’s almost painful. Eddie just sits there and takes it. “I was walking home from the station last night and, um. I almost got mugged?” 

Stan frowns. “ _Almost_?” 

Richie nods, shrinking into himself even more. Eddie’s skin buzzes with the urge to hold him against his chest. “Yeah, he didn’t actually take anything but managed to do this,” he gestures to his face; Eddie’s hand tightens, “before he ran away.” 

Patty’s brow furrows, her and Stan exchanging a weighted look. “And you talked to the police, right?” 

Richie scoffs. His face turns contemptuous. “Hell no, are you kidding? They’re not gonna do shit. Dude didn’t take any of my stuff and I didn’t get a good enough look at him for the police to even care. I just won’t walk that way anymore.” 

Stan looks troubled, his eyes flitting to Eddie before he looks back at Richie. Eddie thinks he should say something but there is a vice around his throat; it’s all he can do to squeeze Richie’s hand. 

“Maybe don’t walk home at all anymore, but alright,” Stan says quietly. “We can’t force you to go to the police if you don’t want to.” 

Richie nods, his shoulders relaxing. The way he slumps now makes his knee brush against Eddie’s. The brief contact sets Eddie on fire. 

He thinks that’s it, that’s the end of the conversation. It grinds his gears more than he thinks he can express in this moment because he hates the idea of some faceless fucker getting away with hurting Richie like this, but there’s nothing he can do about it right now, especially not when he feels like he’s running on autopilot. He can’t even help Richie the way he wants to, how in the hell would he be able to make that fucker pay for what he did? He’s too much of a coward, too weak to ever be able to—

And then Patty says, with no idea how it will make Eddie shatter, “Was the adrenaline the reason you dropped?” 

Richie, who had gone so sweetly pliant beside him, tenses so hard and so fast that he almost springs from the table. He draws into himself, his knee pulling away so that the only point of contact he has with Eddie is their hands. Even then, his grip has gone alarmingly loose. “What?” 

“The adrenaline,” Patty says again, gentle. “After almost getting mugged. Is that the reason you dropped? The comedown of that?” 

It’s curious, the way that seemingly simple question makes Richie squirm. Eddie had assumed the same thing, that the adrenaline and fear of being attacked like that had caused an overflow of emotions that had resulted in subdrop, but the way Richie’s reacting makes him think there’s more to it than that. 

Richie clears his throat. “Yeah, uh. Among other things.” 

Stan arches an eyebrow, glancing at Patty. “‘Among other things’? What does that mean?” 

Richie blows out a breath, determinedly not looking at any of them. His hand goes even looser in Eddie’s grip. “I, um. I was also anxious all day, so that, uh, that didn’t really help.” 

A jolt runs through Eddie’s chest at the vulnerability in Richie’s voice. It doesn’t work this way, Eddie of all people knows that, but he is filled with the irrational urge to take away anything Richie could ever be anxious about. To wrap him in bubble wrap until he can be nothing but safe and happy for the rest of his days. And then Eddie thinks of his mother, and how she did the exact same thing to him, and how it was always better for him to have gotten hurt and been anxious if it meant he was truly living, and he is filled with a shame so visceral his blood runs hot. What does it say about him, that even after all this time his first thought is almost always what his mother would have done? What does it say about him that he cannot shake her away? 

Patty’s lips part, a look of genuine sadness taking over her face. Slowly, likely mindful of how Richie had reacted last time, she reaches to clasp his hand, emboldened when he doesn’t pull away. “I’m sorry, Rich. Are you okay now? What were you so anxious about?” 

Eddie doesn’t really want to know but he is grotesquely curious, if only for his own selfish gain. Briefly, he contemplates if it would be possible for him to slip out before Richie can say anything. He’s stopped when Richie glances at him from under his lashes before he closes his eyes and blows out a shaky breath. 

“Ben texted me,” he admits, his eyes still closed. Eddie’s blood goes cold. He absolutely doesn’t want to hear this, he needs to leave immediately, he can’t— “Said Eds had had a bad day, and I, uh. I just got worried that he wasn’t alright.” 

All at once, the haze that had settled over Eddie’s brain dissipates, bringing the world and the reality of Richie’s words into sharp and sickening focus. He stares at the side of Richie’s face, feeling horror churn low in his gut. “You were anxious because you were worried about me?” he rasps. His voice is surprisingly steady. 

Richie turns to him, his brow furrowed in confusion. His grip, earlier so loose, now tightens to the point Eddie can feel his knuckles grind together. “Yeah?” 

“Why?” Eddie’s lips barely move. 

Richie’s frown deepens. He turns more fully towards Eddie, almost completely ignoring Patty and Stan across from them. “What do you mean, why? You’re my best friend, Eds. Of course I’m going to be worried about you.” 

Eddie shakes his head, feeling his heart pound against his ribcage. His thoughts almost sting with how quickly they rush past, bruising in their intensity, and the only thing he can think to say is, “Not to the point of anxiety.” 

Here Richie’s cheeks flush, something shy in the curl of his mouth. His thumb strokes along the back of Eddie’s hand. Eddie trembles in the face of his kindness that he will absolutely never deserve. “No, but the last time I got a text like that from Ben was when you were still living with your mom so I—I panicked just a little bit.” He smiles, clearly trying to get Eddie to smile back. 

Eddie feels frozen, though. His skin is prickling, his own brain is screaming, his chest is going haywire. There’s no way he can return that smile when— 

“I have to go to work,” he says abruptly, shoving himself back from the table. He’s grateful for the shock that means Patty, Stan, and Richie just blink at him. 

He manages to get all the way to the front door before someone catches up to him. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, it’s Stan who grabs his arm, not Richie.

“Eddie, woah, slow down,” he says, his voice louder than Eddie thinks it should be. “You’re—Eddie, you’re shaking, I don’t think you should drive like this—”

“I have to go,” Eddie says again, desperate. He’s fiercely glad he’d gotten dressed before he came out for breakfast. His hands tremble so violently that he can barely grab his keys and wallet from the table beside the door. “Please, I have to go.” 

“Why do you have to go?” Stan asks him, much more gentle than Eddie deserves when it was him that—

Eddie whimpers. The shock of the sound makes Stan let go and Eddie stumbles backwards, nearly tripping over himself before he manages to catch himself on the front door. When he looks up, his eyes catch on Richie’s where he’s held back in the hallway by Patty. Richie looks devastated, tears pooling in his eyes, one hand reached out towards Eddie. Eddie balls his hands into fists so he cannot reach back. 

“Eddie,” Stan says again, his hands raised up like he’s trying not to spook a cornered animal. “It’s okay, you don’t need to go anywhere—”

“He’s not safe,” Eddie says over him, crazed and frantic. His heartbeat is thunderous in his ears. “He’s not safe with me, I need to leave, please Stan, _please_ —”

He thinks he hears a gasp. He doesn’t stick around to see who it was; he just whirls, shoving his feet into his shoes and then bolting out of the front door. He’s down the driveway and in his car before he can blink, his shaking hands fumbling with his keys before he manages to get it in and turn the ignition. His vision is grayed at the edges, everything else blurred enough he has trouble clearly identifying anything, and logically he knows Stan was right. He shouldn’t be driving, not right now, but the wild part of him, the side ruled by his instincts, says he needs to be gone before he can fuck anything else up. He peels away from the curb before anyone can stop him. 

It feels wrong to leave when Richie is still overcoming the shock of last night, nevermind what Eddie has inflicted on him just now, but he is only doing what he should’ve done earlier. Richie is better off with Patty and Stan. Not with a Dom that is going to worry him enough to trigger his anxiety.

This is what he has always been afraid of, that he has always known, deep down inside of himself. He has too much of his mother inside of him, too much of her poison running through his veins in ways he will never be able to fully purge. He thought her influence simply meant that his dominance would always be too overbearing, but here is the proof it goes deeper than that. Like her before him, all he does is ruin the people he loves. And now it is partially his fault that Richie dropped last night. 

With tears blurring his vision, Eddie presses his foot into the gas pedal in the hopes that his car will be able to outrun the shattering inside his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry <3
> 
> come be my friend on [twitter](https://twitter.com/19tozier) or [tumblr](https://19tozier.tumblr.com)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0HznzwPDQOAeJZCQt8EYDT)
> 
> chapter content warnings: references to events of chapter 2 (assault, subdrop, etc), emotional distress, panic attack, slight mention of alcohol, confrontation

There is grease smeared across Eddie’s cheekbone. The engine of a car sits pretty under his hands. The garage is closed, all of the lights off except for the one directly above him, and he is completely alone. 

Somehow it doesn’t help his head feel better. 

He sighs, reaching for his rag to wipe his hands off. Across the shop, far enough away that Eddie feels like he can breathe, the radio is blasting with Richie’s show. It’s the first time Eddie has heard Richie’s voice in days. 

It’s his own fault, really. Somewhere between when he had left Patty and Stan’s and driving aimlessly until he ended up at the garage, he’d managed to calm himself down, but the idea of answering any of the calls and texts that had kept coming through had filled him with panic, so he just. Didn’t. And then he continued to not over the several days that followed. And that had included, perhaps especially so, anything from Richie. 

Eddie misses him so much he aches, but it’s better this way. He can’t hurt Richie like this. 

“And that was _Infinitely Ordinary_ by the Wrecks, which is coincidentally exactly the word I’d use to describe myself today,” Richie’s voice spills from the speakers, loud enough that for a moment Eddie can pretend he’s actually there. “A wreck, not ordinary. Ain’t _nothing_ ordinary about this dick, let me tell you. Becca’s giving me a look for that one. It’s literally my name, Becs! Get your mind out of the gutter!” 

Despite himself, despite the sadness still gnawing on the bones of his ribs, despite the part of him that feels like he isn’t allowed anymore, Eddie laughs. It sounds strangled even to his own ears. 

“I tried to put my shoes on the wrong feet this morning,” Richie continues, “which absolutely doesn’t work with a pair of boots, by the way. And that was _after_ I put my jeans on inside out. And then I proceeded to burn my toast. So yeah, feeling like a bit of a wreck today, folks. The expectations for the rest of the day are very low. Speaking of expectations, that’s the name of our next song, sung by one of my favorite bands at the moment, Sir Sly.” 

Eddie has always marveled over how easy Richie makes being a radio host seem. He knows it’s not, since there have been several afternoons where Eddie got to come into the studio and watch Richie while he worked, endlessly pushing buttons and queueing songs and keeping his focus on three different things at once. But Richie always makes it look effortless, all easy smiles and goofy mannerisms that blend seamlessly into whatever music he’s decided to play that day, always quick with a story or a joke. It’s a place for him to shine, his love of music so apparent, and it’s a place that thrives on his impressions and his Voices. 

It’s not even that Eddie is biased. Richie’s so talented, the charm literally oozing out of him to the point that even the guys that work for Eddie think he’s amazing. It helps that Eddie always has the show playing in the garage when Richie hosts, keen on supporting his favorite person. It always made his heart warm to hear the quiet happiness in Richie’s voice whenever Eddie made a reference to whatever he’d said on air that day. 

Now it’s the only way he’ll be able to hear Richie’s voice at all. He’s trying to be okay with that. 

“What a banger, am I right?” Richie says when the song fades away. “That’s one of my favorites. That song fucks even more than I do.” There’s a beat of silence, and then Richie laughs. It makes Eddie ache. “Becs just marched in here to hit me. I just try to entertain you, dear listener, and this is what I have to put up with. The _least_ you could do is call in and give me some thanks.” 

For a brief moment, Eddie entertains the idea of calling in. It wouldn’t be a first; there was a time that Eddie called in almost every day, before Richie’s show had exploded and he’d needed to free up the phones for actual callers. Eddie wants it so badly he burns, but he knows it’s not a good idea. Maybe if he hadn’t fucked everything up between them. 

Richie sounds alright, at the very least. Happy enough, anyways. There’s a strain that makes itself known in his voice every now and then, a barely there thickness that Eddie only notices because of how intimately he knows Richie. Eddie wonders if he’s okay, if being back in the studio is affecting him at all. He’d taken several days off following his attack, something Eddie had only learned when he turned the radio on during Richie’s usual slot and heard a voice that was distinctly not Richie’s. If he’s back now, only a little over a week since that night, Eddie hopes it means he’s not pushing himself too hard. 

Then he remembers it’s not his place to worry about Richie, and his heart screams in his chest. 

Eddie shakes his head, trying to force back his thoughts. He walks to the other side of his garage just to grab a wrench, as if the extra distance will do anything to ground him. It’s not going to; he can’t count the amount of times he’s paced the length of this garage over the past couple of days in the desperate hope that maybe some clarity would come to him. It never worked. 

He’s almost not paying attention to the radio, lost in his thoughts until Richie’s laugh sounds again, slightly strangled but still warm. Eddie tunes back in to hear him say, “Well thanks, man. Always great to hear such nice comments from my listeners.” 

The caller laughs along with him. _“I mean it! We all missed you while you were gone. Hope you’re doing better now.”_

Richie’s laugh fades away. There’s a beat of silence before he says, quiet, “Yeah, I’m doing better now. My friends were there to help me out.” 

_“Oh?”_ The caller sounds intrigued. _“That’s nice. Glad you’ve got support, mate. Your best friend, the one you always talk about, did he help out? I assume he did, yeah? You haven’t talked about him today.”_

Eddie’s heart gives a violent clench. He wants to shut the radio off, can’t bear to hear whatever it is Richie will say, good or bad, but he’s too far away now. He tries anyways, nearly sprinting across the garage, but he isn’t quick enough to get there before Richie clears his throat. 

“Yeah, he helped me out,” he rasps, his voice wrecked. Eddie whimpers. “He’s probably the sole reason I’m doing alright right now, so. Yeah, yeah he was there.” 

Eddie stands in front of the radio, staring at the machine with unseeing eyes. His blood is pumping both searing hot and bitterly cold through his veins, his face flushed and his hands trembling at his sides. He can’t find it in himself to turn the radio off anymore. 

He thinks the caller disconnects, because the next time Richie talks he is alone, and his voice sounds stronger, harder than it was a moment ago. It’s loud too, like his lips are pressed too close to the microphone, a bad habit he never fully got rid of no matter how many times Eddie told him off for it. 

“Let me tell you about my best friend, actually,” he says, sharp. “I know you’ve heard me gush about him for years now, but I’m gonna gush some more and you all just have to fucking listen. My best friend is the prickliest, angriest motherfucker I’ve ever met. He’s like a chihuahua that thinks it’s, like, a pitbull or something. So much rage in such a tiny body. And he won’t hesitate to bite you if he doesn’t like you.” He huffs a laugh. Eddie still stands frozen. “But he’s my favorite person in the entire world. Sorry, Losers, but you all already knew that. He’s my favorite person because he’s also the sweetest person I know. Do you understand how confusing that is? One second he’s yelling at me and the next he’s looking at me with these big ol’ fucking bambi eyes and I just melt. I’m a sucker for those eyes, I gotta admit. He’s the best person I’ve ever met. And he’s the best Dom there could ever be.” He pauses. Takes a deep breath. Says, “And I know you’re listening, Eds, so please just fucking text me back.” 

The wrench in Eddie’s hand clatters to the ground. Over the sound of metal on concrete, Richie says, “This is _Cherry Wine_ by Hozier. Appropriate, I think.” 

Eddie doesn’t hear the song. He doesn’t even hear the first note. He’s too busy following the wrench down to curl up with his knees to his chest, already screaming. 

The things Richie said shouldn’t be a shock. He’s said some variation of those things practically every day since they met. Eddie knows that he’s Richie’s favorite person, just like Richie is _his_ favorite person, and he knows that Richie melts nearly instantaneously if Eddie brings out the puppy dog eyes. None of it’s surprising. 

But Eddie is stuck on one thing. Over and over, his brain replays: _he’s the best Dom there could ever be._

Eddie gasps for breath, sobbing on the exhale. His chest is on fire, his skin prickling and bubbling and turning inside out, bomb after bomb detonating inside of his ribcage and flattening him over every time. There are harsh ripping sounds floating in the air, strange and distorted through the terror plugging his ears, and it takes him entirely too long to realize that the sounds are him, they’re his cries, they’re the sobs rippling through his body because—

He screams. It echoes through the empty garage. 

What is Eddie supposed to do? How is he supposed to survive now that he knows what Richie’s praise sounds like? How is he supposed to live when he wants so badly to be the Dom Richie thinks he is and yet he can’t trust his own instincts? 

Is it even possible for Richie to think of him as a good Dom? Eddie doesn’t think so. He doesn’t think it’s possible for anyone to look at him and see anything more than a tangled wreck of emotion and manipulation, let alone look at him and see anything positive. He is and always will be Sonia Kaspbrak’s son, through and through, and there are things that lurk beneath his skin that are dangerous and disgusting. 

That thing is this: Sonia Kaspbrak had been a switch. 

It always surprised people to find out, because everyone listened to the natural whine of her voice and everyone saw the way she seemed to fold in on herself in public and decided that a woman like that must be as submissive as they came. When Eddie’s father had died everyone around him had whispered that she wouldn’t know what to do without his steadying hand, and when Eddie had tested to be a Dom, everyone had whispered again that she’d raise him to be too soft. 

But Eddie knew the truth. He saw her for what she truly was whenever she jumped from dominant to submissive in order to manipulate him. Rolling over and showing your underbelly doesn’t mean shit when your claws are ready to pounce. She knew exactly what to do in every situation in order to get her way, one second barking at him to take his medication and the next crying over how he didn’t love her. Always one extreme to the other, always in a desperate attempt to control him. 

She had heard the whispers calling him soft. In retaliation, she had taught him to never be anything but too hard.

Eddie knows that his mother was awful. He knows that his childhood was a cycle of hurt and anger that no kid should have had to deal with. But there are ways in which you must adapt just to survive, and Eddie also knows that her influence had long ago dripped into his very core. He cannot scrub himself clean from her. 

He learned dominance by her example. His father had died when Eddie was too young to really remember him, much less remember what it was that had made Frank Kaspbrak such a good Dom, and the classes he had to take in highschool and college hadn’t been enough. They’d been helpful, sure, but those classes weren’t designed to teach a Dom how to be dominant; they relied on the assumption that it was instinctual, that every Dom just knew how to be one without needing to be taught. And maybe he had. From the time Eddie was small, long before he’d ever learn the words for the feelings constantly swirling in his chest, his mother had been showing him time after time what dominance meant. And in that house dominance had meant fear, and anger, and a hurt so deep it had split him open. 

It was enough that when he was younger, still living with his mother, he had wanted nothing more than to have been a sub instead of a Dom, just so he wouldn’t have to be like her. He knows, logically, that being a sub or even a switch wouldn’t have changed her manipulation and likely would’ve just made it worse, but he had convinced himself that he would’ve been better off being anything else. He doesn’t feel like that anymore, but he is still deathly terrified of his dominance and what it could mean for Richie. 

Even now, with Sonia long dead and buried, the ghost of everything she’d taught him wraps around his throat and chokes him slowly to death. 

Eddie sucks in a desperate breath. He can’t see through the tears clouding his vision and he thinks he can still hear Richie’s voice but it’s too warbled for him to latch on to. The concrete is cold beneath him and he imagines that cold seeping into his veins, spreading through his blood to freeze his heart over. Anything to stop the desperate pain pulsing inside of him. 

He wants, with blinding desperation, to be a Dom that would make Richie proud. He wants to be the Dom that _deserves_ Richie’s praise and love, but that’s just. Not him. And it never will be. 

Is it worse to think he manipulated Richie into thinking he’s a good Dom? Or is it worse to think that maybe Richie genuinely means it? 

He can’t, not when Eddie had learned that to love someone was to destroy them. When the overbearing nature of his mother seeps into who he is and every instinct he’s ever had. 

_But_ , a tiny part of him whispers, _Bev and Patty were right. You’ve Dommed other people before and there was never any problem. You’re capable of dominance in a healthy way._

Viciously, Eddie shakes his head, near snarling at the thought. Those were just scenes, nothing more. It was easy to push away the monster that lived inside of him when it was just a scene. It would be different with Richie, with someone Eddie is hopelessly in love with, with someone he wants to be with forever. Eddie doesn’t get a happy ending. It’s not that easy for him. It can’t be that easy for him. Not when he is so incredibly terrified of what he has inside of him, the monster that itches to get out, that he’s certain would hurt and call it protection. Not when it would be so easy for him to fall into his mother’s patterns, freaking out at every minor issue, controlling every aspect of Richie’s life. _It cannot be that easy._

Can it? 

All at once, he becomes aware of Richie’s voice through the speakers again. Bright and blooming and loud, curling into Eddie’s ribcage to battle with the anxiety still screaming there. Everything inside of Eddie feels like it is falling apart and yet he is still so in love with Richie that he can’t breathe. 

He pushes himself up a bit, leaning back against the shelving behind him. His body aches, his mind worse, and he wants nothing more than to curl up and forget the world. He still has tears dripping down his cheeks. He’s infinitely glad he didn’t let Danny come in today. 

This is a conversation that Eddie should be having with Richie. This is something he can admit that he cannot handle alone. But that opens the possibility of Richie meaning what he said and loving Eddie back, and that is only slightly less terrifying than the idea of losing control and accidentally hurting Richie. 

Eddie sighs, scrubbing at his cheeks to try and wipe away his tears. He does his best to breathe and force his thoughts into a numb sort of silence. Richie’s voice continues to play from the radio. 

He picks himself up off of the floor. He doesn’t text Richie back.

* * *

By the time Eddie gets back to his apartment, he is completely and utterly drained. He’s so exhausted he’s clumsy with it, knocking into his kitchen counter and dropping his keys on the floor. 

He sighs, leaning back against the counter and rubbing his eyes. He wants absolutely nothing more than to bundle under the covers and sleep until today is forgotten, but his brain is still racing at a mile a minute. There’s no way he’d be able to fall asleep like this. 

He sighs again, turning around to pour himself a glass of his favorite whiskey. It’s probably not one of his better ideas to mix alcohol with the implosion in his chest, a slippery slope that he shouldn’t go down, but he can’t bring himself to not. It feels like vindication. Like a battle won. 

The alcohol burns on the way down. It only helps a little. 

He does feel better than earlier, though. His emotions have plateaued to a sort of hysterical calm, clear-headed enough to not fall apart at every reminder of Richie. He still feels shaky, boneless, but at least he’s all cried out. 

He takes his whiskey glass with him to the couch. He’s not completely certain if he’ll finish it or not, but the sight of the glass on the coffee table is nevertheless a comfort. When he takes a sip, he savors the heat it builds in his chest, strong enough that for a brief moment it drowns out everything else. 

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, staring into the whiskey. Long enough for his eyes to go dry and gritty and his hands to shake. He’s only knocked out of his reverie when a knock sounds on the front door. 

Eddie frowns, reaching out to put his drink on the coffee table but not getting up yet. He’s not expecting anyone and as far as he knows he shouldn’t have any packages, so there shouldn’t be—

The knock sounds again, firmer this time. Three sharp, a pause, two hesitant. 

Eddie sighs, pushing himself up. He’s abruptly even more exhausted, impatiently annoyed at what is very likely his neighbor coming to bitch at him for something stupid. He can feel the retort building at the tip of his tongue when he reaches the door, throwing it open without checking as he opens his mouth to say—

He stops. Stares. Feels his heart rate ratchet up. 

“Oh good, you’re alive,” Richie sneers, pushing past him to get into his apartment. “And here I thought you were fucking dead or something.” 

Slowly, Eddie closes the door, feeling like he is a puppet being pulled on his strings. It’s so much, looking at Richie standing in his apartment, and he cannot comprehend that it’s actually him. He doesn’t look like Richie, not really: his hair is a snarled, tangled mess, his face is pale and thin, his eyes are furious. 

“What are you doing here?” Eddie asks weakly. His lips are numb. 

Richie scoffs, throwing his hands up. “Really? That’s what you’re going with? You aren’t even going to try and explain why you ignored me for a week?” 

“I didn’t ignore you,” Eddie says automatically, and then immediately closes his mouth. He did ignore Richie, didn’t he? For good reason, but maybe that reasoning is being pulled apart by having Richie within touching distance again. 

Richie’s face pulls into something resembling a snarl. “Bull-fucking-shit. You ignored every single one of us, Eddie! What the absolute fuck?” 

Eddie doesn’t remember the last time Richie actually used his name like that instead of some silly nickname. He doesn’t like the sound of it. He wants to tell Richie the truth but his mouth feels sewn shut, all of his words building behind his lips and jamming in between his teeth. 

Richie takes his silence as a cue to keep going, dragging his hands down his face. “Patty said you needed time and you’d reach out when you were ready but you just disappeared. You went into what was essentially Dom-drop and then you fucking _disappeared_. You didn’t respond to anyone’s messages, you didn’t pick up the phone, you didn’t show up to game night. Fuck, you didn’t even show up to lunch with Ben! _Ben!_ He’s the human equivalent of a golden retriever! If there’s anyone who can help and be there for you, it’s Ben!” His voice gets progressively louder with every word. 

Shame curdles low in Eddie’s stomach. Richie’s right about absolutely all of it, and the only defense Eddie has is that he couldn’t handle seeing any of them. Beyond Richie, who Eddie had been certain he’d ruined his relationship with beyond repair, Stan and Patty had both been there to witness his breakdown. Patty knew at least a part of the reasoning behind it. And if Patty knew, Stan knew, and the rest of them could probably have made their own assumptions from Richie’s injuries and Eddie’s isolation. The thought of all of them knowing about what had happened to Richie and knowing, intrinsically or not, that it was Eddie’s fault had been selfishly more than he could deal with. He didn’t want or deserve pity, and if there was anger maybe he could do them all a favor and remove himself from the situation before things got uglier. 

There’s nothing Eddie can say to make any of it right, though, so he doesn’t try. Instead, he just says quietly, “I understand if you’re angry.” His eyes stay trained on Richie’s shoes. 

“You’re goddamn right I’m angry,” Richie hisses back, his voice trembling with how tight it is. 

Eddie flinches, his shoulders slumping. He feels defeated, even if he’d known this was what would happen. There’s no way Richie could ever forgive him but foolishly, a part of him had hoped he and Richie would stay the same. He had hoped with enough time that he could still have Richie in his life, and now—

But Richie continues, loud and sharp, “I’m fucking furious that you think you’re unlovable or some shit when I’ve been in love with you since I was fucking ten years old!” 

Stop. 

Stop time. 

Stop the world. 

Stop everything except here and now, stop everything except the words shimmering in the space between them. Hope blooms bright in Eddie’s belly, a smile threatening to curve his lips. 

And then it comes crashing down, and horror overshadows everything else. Eddie gasps, shaking his head frantically. “No,” he breathes, pressing himself back against the front door. “No, you can’t.” 

Richie blinks, his brow furrowing. His hands lift like he’s going to reach for Eddie; Eddie shrinks away before he can. “What? Eds—”

“I can’t be your Dom,” Eddie says over him, rushed and cracked at the volume his voice takes. “I can’t—I can’t be what you need, I’m not—”

“You already are what I need,” Richie tells him, louder now like he can drown out everything Eddie’s thinking. “Eds, you’re already everything I—”

“I’m not a good Dom!” Eddie shouts, the emotion bursting out of him in an effort to no longer be contained. Richie recoils, a horrified expression crossing over his face. “I’m never going to be a good Dom, I can’t do that for you, I can’t—”

This time, Richie doesn’t stop when Eddie flinches away from him. His hands are warm and gentle when they slide up Eddie’s arms to cup the sides of his neck, tipping his chin up so their foreheads touch. Eddie trembles to be touched like this, like he is something precious, like he is something precious _to Richie._ He gasps, his hands curling into Richie’s shirt at his waist. 

“Breathe, baby,” Richie murmurs to him. This close, Eddie can see that his bruising has faded to a pale yellow. “You’re okay, _we’re_ okay, just breathe for me.” 

Eddie draws in a ragged breath, closing his eyes. He can’t stand to see how soft Richie’s face is because he doesn’t deserve for it to be directed at him. His heartbeat thunders in his ears and he focuses on that instead of the scent of Richie’s skin, trying to force himself to calm down so that Richie can stop worrying. 

“That’s it,” Richie whispers, his thumbs stroking over Eddie’s jaw. “I love you so much, Eds. You’re the best Dom in the entire world, you have to know that, there’s no one better than you.” 

Eddie shakes his head, his lips parting around a denial, but all that comes out is a whimper. Richie shushes him gently, kissing his forehead. He keeps breathing those same words, over and over, the same lies about how Eddie is good when the truth is he’s anything but. Eddie shakes, each word filling him up inside until he finally boils over. 

“No,” he finally rasps out, managing to duck under Richie’s arm to put distance between them. He can’t think when Richie’s that close to him. “That’s not true, I’m not good.” 

Richie spins to face him, his brows drawn together. “How the hell are you not good? You’re the best damn Dom I’ve ever met.” 

“Stop saying that,” Eddie snaps at him. His emotions are quickly giving way to anger, not at Richie, but at this entire situation. “It’s not fucking true. You don’t have to—to try and make me feel better or whatever the fuck it is you’re doing.” 

“You think I’m trying to make you _feel better_?” Richie’s voice pitches higher in disbelief. “I just told you I’m in love with you and you think it’s me just lying to make you _feel better_? What the absolute fuck?” 

“You don’t get it,” Eddie tells him, ignoring the way his body thrums at the way love sounds from Richie’s lips. “You don’t fucking understand—”

“So help me understand then!” Richie exclaims, throwing his hands out. “Why the fuck do you keep pushing me away like this? Why are you so bent on thinking you’re an awful Dom?” 

“Because I am!” Eddie shouts back. “You went into subdrop because of me!” 

“I didn’t fucking drop because of you! I dropped because I almost got mugged and I was scared!” 

“You dropped because you were anxious over me! It’s my fault, Richie!” 

“No it’s fucking not!” Richie yells. “You’re the only reason I got out of subdrop at all, you fucking asshole, and it’s because you’re so fucking good! You’re always good to me! Why the hell can’t you get that through your thick skull?”

Eddie hadn’t intended to say anything, but something inside of him breaks wide open, spilling every toxic thing he’s ever felt directly into his bloodstream and swallowing him whole. “I’m exactly like my fucking mom!” he snarls, his hands balling into fists at his sides. “I learned how to be a Dom because of her, Richie! I’m not capable of being good and I can’t be what you want from me!” 

Richie rears back, his eyebrows shooting up. “ _That’s_ what this is about?” His voice is incredulous. “Eds, you are _nothing_ like her.” 

Eddie shakes his head, drawing in a shaky breath. “That’s not true,” he says, the fight draining out of him as quickly as it came. He just feels desperate now. “I’m her son, I can’t—She taught me how to be just like her, I’m trying to be better than her but I don’t know how—”

“Have you ever thought,” Richie says, loud enough that Eddie has to stop and listen, “that you trying so hard to be better than her already means you’re _nothing_ like her?” 

Eddie’s mouth shuts with an audible snap. The only thing he can do is stare wide-eyed at Richie, who takes his reaction as an indication to keep going. 

“She never gave a shit about not being manipulative,” he says, his eyes blazing. “She never cared about being good. All she ever wanted was to control you and she did everything she fucking could to do that. She never wanted to be ‘better’ or to fucking change and you _do_. You’re so scared of being like her that I’m pretty sure it’s impossible for you to be!” 

It’s silent for a long moment, Richie’s chest heaving. His cheeks are bright red, the flush trailing down to his neck, and Eddie feels like his tether to the world has been snipped. He feels aimless, drifting in a way that should feel terrifying but somehow feels like the most freeing thing since he left his mother’s house. 

“But—but I am manipulative,” Eddie whispers weakly, grasping desperately at the things he’s always thought were true even as they go up in flames.

Richie throws his hands up. “Oh my fucking god, Eddie, no you’re not! You’re the farthest thing from manipulative! Everything you do, you do because you just want the people around you to be happy! How the hell is that manipulative? You’re the most selfless person I’ve ever met.” 

The surety in his voice draws Eddie up short. He wants to argue more, scream until Richie sees the mangled mess he feels he is, but something in his bones whispers that nothing will make Richie change his mind. Richie is completely certain in Eddie and there’s nothing he can do about it. His lips tremble at the thought. 

“How can you be so sure?” he asks, quiet. 

Richie’s shoulders slump, his expression morphing into one of naked devastation. Equally as soft, “That you’re a good person? A good Dom?” 

Wordlessly, Eddie nods. There’s a lump in his throat that feels like it will choke him. 

Richie sighs, his eyes closing. Roughly, he drags his hand down his face, knocking his glasses askew. He’s silent for several long moments, long enough that Eddie is irrationally terrified that maybe this will be when he realizes Eddie’s right, but Richie just sighs again and opens his eyes to find Eddie’s. 

“Tenth grade,” he begins, his voice wavering. “Bill’s birthday. Your mom had just grounded you again so we all thought you wouldn’t be there for his party. You snuck out and bought him the biggest cake you could get with your allowance and stayed until three in the morning so he would have a good day. Your mom kept you locked inside for two weeks because of that and you didn’t give a shit.” 

Eddie’s cheeks flush. “That doesn’t count, we were sixteen—”

“Junior year of college,” Richie continues, as if Eddie hadn’t spoken. “You signed up to take notes for a class you weren’t even fucking in so that the disability office had them on file. You didn’t even tell us because you didn’t want recognition for it. They tried to pay you for it and you refused to take the money. I only found out because they knew we were roommates and gave me the cash to give to you. I hid the money on your side of the room because you wouldn’t have taken it if you knew what it was from. I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve ever even told you that I know. You just did that out of the kindness of your own fucking heart.” 

“They needed the notes,” Eddie says weakly. 

A small smile tugs at the corner of Richie’s mouth. “When Ben asked you to be his best man, you didn’t even hesitate. You’ve taken care of every single detail without Bev or Ben ever having to ask and you’ve been there for both of them the entire time. Bev showed me your spreadsheets once, a little while ago. You’re adorable, did you know that? It’s all color-coordinated and you’ve got references and so much shit that I don’t think I would’ve even thought of. You fucking helped Bev make her wedding dress. You’re one of the best friends any of us have ever fucking had and you don’t even realize it.” 

With every word and memory, Richie takes a step forward, until he’s finally close enough that the tips of their shoes almost touch. Still, his hands stay at his sides, not touching Eddie even if he aches for him to. 

“A week ago,” Richie breathes, his eyes burning into Eddie’s. “Stan called you and you dropped everything because I was hurt. I was fucking terrified out of my mind and the second I heard your voice I knew I would be okay. And you were _perfect_ , Eds. Nobody else could’ve taken care of me as well as you did. You’ve been taking care of me for fucking years and you’ve never asked for anything in return. _That’s_ how I know you’re a good person and a good Dom. Your mom was a fucking psychopath and there’s no way in hell you could ever be like her.” 

There are tears filling Eddie’s eyes. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard Richie sound so serious or so earnest, and his heart is overflowing with the love he feels. He recognizes that this is Richie baring his own heart, this is all of Richie’s cards on the table, and if Eddie wants him the way he’s longed for since he was a kid he has to reach out and make that move himself. He can’t let himself be held back by the ghost of his mother anymore. She’s been dead for years and dead to him for even longer and it’s time, Eddie thinks, to let her be buried. 

“I’ve been in love with you since I was a kid,” he whispers. His hands tremble when he fits them around Richie’s hips, finally closing the little distance still between them. Richie’s face goes soft. “I am so fucking terrified that I’m going to hurt you.” 

Richie’s hands come up to cup his cheeks, his thumbs stroking just under Eddie’s eyes. His smile is small and sweet. “I don’t think you could if you tried.” 

The moment hangs suspended in the air between them before Eddie makes a soft sound and drags Richie down to kiss him. 

It lights him up inside immediately. He needs to get closer, pulling Richie in so their bodies meld together, and even that is not close enough. The taste of Richie’s mouth, the feeling of their lips pressed together, the noise Richie makes when Eddie’s hands slide under his shirt to his back, all of it makes fire bloom in Eddie’s stomach. He never wants to stop kissing Richie. It’s everything he’s ever imagined it would be. 

Richie’s hands slide into Eddie’s hair, a whimper falling from his lips at the slight graze of Eddie’s teeth. He’s so sweet, letting himself be kissed and opening eagerly for the press of Eddie’s tongue. He’s perfect, so fucking beautiful, and Eddie is dizzy with the knowledge that this is his. It’s him that’s making Richie fall apart like this. No one else will ever be able to know what this feels like, because Eddie is never going to let him go. 

Eddie breaks the kiss to trail his lips down Richie’s jaw, breathing quick and damp over his ear. Richie trembles, gasping out his name as his fingers tighten in Eddie’s hair. 

“I love you,” Eddie murmurs, stroking his thumbs over the small of Richie’s back. “I love you so fucking much.” 

Richie ducks to press his forehead against Eddie’s neck, his hands sliding down to wrap around his shoulders. “God, I feel like I’m fucking dreaming right now. I’ve wanted to do that for years.” 

Eddie huffs a laugh. It does feel surreal to be here in this moment, holding Richie and kissing him and finally getting to admit that he loves him. It would be easy to get lost in this and not think about anything else, even easy to forget what ultimately led them to this moment. But Eddie can’t do that, and he won’t let Richie do it either. 

He gathers Richie in closer, turning his nose into Richie’s hair and closing his eyes. The world feels easier in the dark. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “I shouldn’t have ignored you. Any of you. I don’t know why I—”

Richie shuts him up with another kiss, much gentler than the first. When he pulls away, he stays close enough that their lips brush. “I get it. You were scared.” He sighs. “You should’ve talked to me or at least to someone but. I understand. Just _please_ don’t do that again. I don’t think I could handle it.” 

“Never,” Eddie promises quietly. “You’re stuck with me now, Tozier.” 

Richie laughs, settling back in and letting Eddie take most of his weight. “Sounds pretty fucking good to me.” 

Eddie hums, content for a moment to just hold Richie. There is more they will need to talk about but Eddie feels dead on his feet, even more exhausted now after so many intense emotions. He wants nothing more than to curl up and sleep for a week but he doesn’t think he could handle letting Richie get any farther away from him than this. 

“Hey,” he murmurs, turning to kiss Richie’s temple. “Stay the night?” 

He feels Richie’s lips curve into a smile against his neck. “Like I was gonna fucking go anywhere.” 

Eddie kisses him again, just because he can. It’s just as good as the first. Privately, he wonders if he’ll ever get used to the electric shock that is Richie’s lips against his; he thinks the answer is no. 

They’re quiet as they stumble down the hall to Eddie’s room, both of them so tired their eyes are drooping. Richie has long since had his own toothbrush and a change of clothes in Eddie’s apartment, just like Eddie has his own set in Richie’s, and maybe it should’ve been a foregone conclusion that they’d end up here. Even the way they get ready for bed is practiced and easy, the two of them moving around each other in the bathroom and never bumping into each other. 

It’s far from the first time they’ve shared a bed but this time is different, Richie’s fingertips trailing over his waist and smoothing up his chest, their bodies curled together under the covers. For the first time in a long time, Eddie’s instincts are completely silent in his chest. 

“We’ll need to talk boundaries,” Eddie murmurs sometime later, breaking the blissful quiet they’d been sitting in. Richie hums, his eyes closed and his cheek pressed to Eddie’s shoulder. “Probably fill out an inventory even if it’s just a formality. Figure out exactly what—”

“Eds,” Richie mumbles, flapping his hand until he manages to cover Eddie’s mouth, his eyes still closed. “I love you, I really do, but we can worry about that tomorrow. I’m sleeping here.” 

Eddie snorts, pulling Richie’s hand from his mouth and pressing it to his cheek instead. “Alright asshole, I was just saying. Excuse me for wanting to do this right.” Despite how he tries to stay flippant, the vulnerability in his voice shines through. 

Richie goes still. Eddie panics for only a second before Richie pushes himself up on one elbow, leaning over him. His glasses are on the nightstand and Eddie’s certain he can’t actually see shit, but his expression is serious and the low light from the lamp casts shadows over his cheekbones. 

“Hey,” he says quietly, stroking his thumb over Eddie’s cheek. “You know it’s gonna be fine, right? Yeah, we should definitely fill out some inventory shit and talk about this but nothing’s really gonna change. Not the shit that matters, anyways. We’ll still be us.” He pauses, then smirks. “Us with some fucking _explosive_ sex, anyways.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Beep beep, dickwad.” He hesitates, looking between Richie’s eyes before he quietly admits, “What if I do something wrong? What if I end up being as controlling as my mother? I’ve never been in a serious relationship like this, Rich.” 

“And you think I have?” Richie scoffs, shaking his head. “Eds, there’s no right or wrong way to do this. We just make up our own rules as we go. As long as we talk everything out we should be golden.” 

Eddie blows out a breath, nodding once. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.” He squints. “Since when were you so fucking good at giving advice?” 

Richie gasps, then sniffs dramatically. “I have no clue what the fuck you’re talking about, I’ve always been this wise and all-knowing. It’s not my fault that you never listened to me.” He leans in, faux-seriously, and Eddie already knows exactly what he’s going to say before he whispers, “It’s ‘cause I’ve got a massive schlong. Just absolutely fucking _packing_ —”

He’s cut off with a shriek when Eddie tackles him onto his back, wrestling with him just to shut him up. He’s laughing too hard to really be serious about it even as he yells that Richie’s disgusting, his cheeks aching with the force of his smile and the sound of Richie’s giggles. It feels good, great even, to be able to let himself relax like this. He’d never realized the tension piled on his shoulders until it was finally gone. 

Eventually, he settles down in between Richie’s legs, their hips slotted together. He’s got one hand next to Richie’s shoulder to hold his weight up, the other pressed to his cheek. He thinks he’ll die if he’s not touching Richie in some way. 

“I love you,” Eddie tells him softly, leaning down to kiss him. “So fucking much, you have no idea.” 

Richie grins up at him, his cheeks pink. “That sounds kinda gay, Spaghetti.” He laughs at the look on Eddie’s face. “I’m kidding, shit. I love you too. I love you more than I know what to do with.” 

His words are almost lost in the huge yawn that overtakes him. Eddie yawns too, laughing softly. “Bedtime?” 

Richie nods, his eyelids drooping down adorably. Eddie can’t help but kiss his nose before he leans over to turn the lamp off, bathing the room in darkness. 

Eddie gathers Richie close, pulling him in to his chest and twining their legs together. Richie sighs, nuzzling his nose into the crook of Eddie’s neck, his fingers curling into the fabric of Eddie’s shirt. 

“Love you, ‘Sghetti,” he mumbles, his words slurred. 

Eddie smiles into the darkness of the room. “Love you too, Rich,” he murmurs. “Go to sleep, sweetheart. I’m not going anywhere.” 

He pulls Richie closer. With the sweet weight of him against his chest, he falls into the most contented sleep he thinks he’s ever had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come be my friend on [twitter](https://twitter.com/19tozier) or [tumblr](https://19tozier.tumblr.com)
> 
> i love u


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0HznzwPDQOAeJZCQt8EYDT)
> 
> chapter content warnings: explicit sexual content (dom/sub, light bondage, light choking), references to events of chapter 2, brief mentions of therapy, veeeeeery light emotional distress 
> 
> hehe :-)

Eddie wakes up the next morning with hair stuck in his mouth and a puddle of drool on his chest. 

He’s confused for a brief flash of a moment. There’s still the distinct feeling like a bomb has gone off inside of his chest, like he’s recovering from emotion too strong to really be named. He’s both heavy and infinitely light at the same time. The only comparison he has is the aftermath of finally leaving his mother’s house. 

Then Richie snuffles against his neck, his back arching a little bit in his sleep, and the details of yesterday come rushing back. 

The heavy feeling is almost entirely eclipsed by the warmth that spreads through Eddie’s veins, his heart stuttering and then picking up speed. There is still so much he needs to work through, so much he and Richie need to discuss, but with Richie curled around him like this it feels minuscule. Easy to manage. 

He smiles, pressing his nose into Richie’s curls. One hand strokes up and down Richie’s spine, smooth slow movements that make him snuffle again and squirm. Eddie just keeps going, biting his lip to keep from laughing when Richie huffs and blearily opens his eyes, glaring up at him. 

“What are you doing,” he demands, though the force in his voice isn’t believable at all for how clearly tired he still is. “I’m sleeping.” 

Eddie grins, stroking his thumb over the dimples at the base of Richie’s spine. Something smug curls beneath his ribcage at the way Richie shivers. “Not anymore.” 

Richie huffs, dropping his head again and curling back up. “Too early for this,” he mumbles, punctuating his words with a huge yawn. “Wake me up in three hours.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes, shifting to nudge Richie onto his back and then blanket his body with his own. Richie grumbles at him, his face set into an adorable frown, but it melts away into something soft and sweet when Eddie dips down to kiss him, morning breath be damned. He’s wanted this for so long that there’s no part of Richie that he could ever find disgusting. 

“What if,” he whispers, their lips still close enough to brush, “I make you breakfast? Will you wake up for me then?” 

Richie blinks, his fingers flexing around Eddie’s biceps. “What kind of breakfast?” 

Eddie laughs. “Nothing like what Patty can make, I can assure you of that. Toast? Eggs, maybe? I have some fruit too.” 

Richie considers him for a long moment, his eyes slightly narrowed, before he sighs and nods. “Fine. But you have to pay the kiss tax first.” 

Eddie laughs again, something bright and warm settling in his stomach. “I think I can manage that,” he murmurs. 

Richie arches into him the second he leans down, his hands slipping up to thread through Eddie’s hair. Eddie will kiss him every day for the rest of his life and it still bowls him over, the knowledge that this is his and he will never have to give it up. There had been something hesitant inside of him last night, a stubborn part of him reluctant to believe that things were actually working out, but even that part of him is shrinking. There is only now, and this, and the delicious feeling of Richie underneath him. 

It’s wholly overwhelming, these emotions that are much too big for his chest. Eddie is lost in the wave of them all, helpless to do anything but kiss Richie back, wondering if it’s possible to crawl into his mouth and make a home beside his heart. 

He has to drag himself away eventually, panting against Richie’s cheek. Richie whines, twisting his head to try and kiss him again, but Eddie just laughs breathlessly, gentling him back down with a hand cupped around his shoulder. Richie blinks up at him, utterly disheveled, eyes blown wide and cheeks flushed a gorgeous pink. 

“Why’d you stop?” he asks, quiet and sweet. Eddie feels drunk on it, the knowledge that _he_ did that, he took Richie apart like this only from a simple kiss. He can’t even imagine what’ll happen with more, how he’ll be able to _wreck him_ —

Eddie shakes his head, forcing those thoughts away. His thumb is gentle when it strokes over Richie’s cheekbone. “Breakfast,” he reminds him softly. 

Richie pouts, his bottom lip slick and shiny in a way that is incredibly distracting. His back arches, just a little bit, enough that their bodies press together from shoulder to thigh. “Or,” he says, his voice going breathy, “we could make out some more.” 

It’s so tempting. Richie is so sweet and pliant beneath him, his eyes dark and wanting. Eddie could kiss him until he was whimpering, hazy and soft and completely Eddie’s, and maybe trail a hand down his chest and hold him close and feel him tremble. They could stay in bed all day and Eddie could figure out exactly what makes Richie tick, figure out how to make him squirm, but—

“Inventories,” he rasps, feeling a shudder rip through his chest. “Boundaries. We need to talk about this first. No further until then.” Not when it would be so easy for him to fuck this up without realizing. 

Richie huffs a sigh, his head tilting back against the pillows. His dark curls spread around him like some sort of halo. The light streaming in from the window pools in the curve of his jaw and collarbone. “I hate you when you’re right,” he complains. 

Eddie laughs, slightly shaky. “So you hate me all the time?” he asks, relaxing a little bit at the sight of Richie’s grin. He shifts, forcing himself to sit up and pull away to stand by the foot of the bed. 

Richie rolls his eyes, stretching out a hand to snag his glasses off the bedside table. “Yeah actually, you’re my sworn enemy. It’s very Shakespearean when you think about it.” 

There’s a quip on the tip of Eddie’s tongue, something ready to lash out and keep this banter going, but then Richie swings his legs around to sit at the edge of the bed and the sunlight from the window completely washes over him, burning the ends of his curls a dark gold and softening the edge of his smile. And the thing is is that he’s so fucking beautiful, and he always has been, and Eddie has gotten so used to swallowing these emotions down but now Richie is _his_ and Richie _loves him back_. Eddie doesn’t need to swallow this down anymore. Maybe he never has in the first place. 

He slowly walks around, stepping in front of Richie. Richie looks up at him in surprise, his blue eyes huge and clear behind his glasses. Eddie smiles, cupping Richie’s cheek and stroking his thumb just under his eye. 

“I love you,” he murmurs, because he cannot keep it in anymore. He thinks he’ll probably say those words so many times that they’ll lose their meaning. “I love you so fucking much, sweetheart.” 

And he thinks he’ll never get tired of the way Richie melts at those words, his expression going so soft and sweet it makes Eddie’s chest burn. Not in a bad way; it is the burn of knowing the one person he has always wanted wants him back. 

“I love you too,” Richie whispers, letting his chin dig into Eddie’s stomach as he looks up at him. “So fucking much, Eds, you’ve got no idea.” 

Eddie huffs a soft laugh, tucking a curl behind Richie’s ear. “I think I’ve got some idea,” he says quietly, ducking down to kiss him again. 

It’s so gentle this time, a simple press of their lips together and nothing more. It’s still one of the best things Eddie has ever experienced. There’s so many things he can read inside of it: _I love you_ and _you are everything to me_ and _I will never give you up._ Hope and love and promise, all rolled into one. 

When they pull apart, Richie’s eyes are slightly glazed, but his grin is bright. “Breakfast,” he says, patting Eddie’s hip. “Then we do these inventories, and then I’m gonna eat a real meal.” He winks. “A plate of spaghetti, if you will.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes, stepping back and moving for the door. “You can eat my fist, asshole,” he throws over his shoulder, heading for his kitchen without checking to see if Richie’s behind him. He doesn’t need to. 

“Kinky,” Richie snickers, catching up with him just as Eddie heads for the fridge. “Thought we were gonna wait until we talked boundaries but okay, let me just bend over—”

“It was a mistake that you ever learned how to talk,” Eddie snaps, scowling at him to mask his amusement. He opens the fridge, starting to pull out anything he can use for breakfast.

Richie grins, bumping their hips together, taking the eggs out of Eddie’s hands and putting it on the counter for him. “You can stop me from talking any day, baby,” he purrs, winking. 

Eddie blows out a sigh, his lips twitching just enough for it to not be believable. “Start scrambling those eggs, Tozier. And _please_ , for the love of fuck, do not burn yourself.” 

Richie salutes him, his face as serious as possible before he dissolves into giggles. Eddie sighs again, making a show of grumbling even as he feels so in love he almost can’t keep himself upright. 

They fall into the same easy grace as last night, working around each other seamlessly as they make breakfast. Richie scrambles their eggs and adds the peppers and cheese that Eddie prefers without prompting. Eddie makes the toast, already familiar with what Richie likes without having to ask: olive oil butter spread thin over the bread before it gets put in the toaster oven, so that the inside is moist but the edges are crispy. 

Once again, Eddie is struck with the knowledge that this should not have been a surprise. He’s never believed in the concept of soulmates, mostly because he has not one but seven other people that have claimed part of his soul, but he’s never shared anything like the bond he has with Richie with anybody else. No one has ever understood him as easily as Richie has always been able to, not even the other Losers. Richie can read his mood like it’s his first language and they can tell what the other is thinking with a single look. This, here, making breakfast in his kitchen with Richie belting showtunes purposefully off-key, feels as close to fate as he thinks he will ever get. He knows that discredits the choices both of them have had to make to get to this point but, he muses, it at least makes his heart flutter in his chest. 

He feels that flutter all the way through the rest of their preparation, through when they sit down, and through when they eat. He can’t help it; Richie looks so soft and sleepy, eating the food that _Eddie_ helped make for him, playing footsies with him under the table. 

“Hey,” Eddie says when the flutter gets to be too much. Richie looks up at him, strawberry juice pooling down his chin. He’s a mess. He’s perfect. “I love you.” 

It’s as satisfying as it was the first time, watching the way those words make Richie shiver. His shoulders slump, his eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks. “I love you too, Spaghetti,” he grins, a flush crawling down his neck. 

Eddie swallows, taking the last bite of his eggs. Across from him, Richie does the same, clearing his plate with a flourish. There is a noticeable tension that settles over the room, heavy enough that Eddie thinks he can feel it against his skin. 

Richie clears his throat, picking up his plate and reaching for Eddie’s. “So,” he says, forcibly casual, taking the plates to the sink and rinsing them off. His back is to Eddie when he finishes, “Inventory shit still on the table?” 

Seeing him like this, the broad expanse of his back vulnerable, a slight waver to his voice, Eddie feels his mouth water at the idea of fully taking him apart. Learning what really puts him under, stripping him layer by layer until he’s trembling and sobbing in Eddie’s arms. For the first time, Eddie doesn’t resist the instincts in his chest—he pushes himself up, presses himself to Richie’s back, bracketing him against the counter. Richie inhales sharply. 

Eddie noses at the hair behind Richie’s ear, pressing his lips against the hot skin of his neck. “Yeah, Rich,” he breathes, smirking when he feels Richie tremble. “There’s a lot on the table here, actually.” 

He feels the way Richie arches back into him, melting against his chest. “Damn,” Richie gasps, his hands bracing on the counter in between Eddie’s. “Table sex? Didn’t know you were that kind of freak, Eds.” 

Eddie laughs, letting one hand trail up Richie’s stomach and chest to splay over his heart. “You’d certainly look good bent over the table,” he muses, power rushing through his veins when Richie gasps. Regretfully, he has to pull himself away, too close to fully giving in before boundaries have been set. “But not now, sweetheart. Let me grab some inventories from my office. I’ll be right back.” 

He waits until Richie nods and sinks back into his seat at the table, his eyes already a little glazed over. Eddie has to force himself to turn away, his resolve crumbling by the second. 

He hurries to his office, keen on not leaving Richie alone for too long. He’s lucky he already had several inventories printed out, always prepared even though it’s been years since he’s had any reason to fill one out. He grabs two from the folder, then pens from his desk, before he all but runs back to the kitchen. 

Richie looks up when he comes back in, his cheeks already flushed and his eyes dilated, but he’s solid enough that Eddie feels alright giving him the inventory and the pen. Eddie settles himself back into his seat, across from Richie, certain that if he were any closer that they would forget the inventories entirely. 

Eddie clears his throat, forcing his voice as steady as he can. “Be as thorough as possible, please. Don’t hold anything back. If you aren’t comfortable with anything, literally anything, please tell me. I don’t want to hurt you.” 

Richie glances at him through his eyelashes. Even with his face a little hazy, the force of his attention is a lot, especially when his expression goes devastatingly earnest. “Promise, Eds. I’ll fill it out like a good boy scout.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes, looking away to fiddle with his pen. “You were never a boy scout. Just—please, don’t hide any of your limits. No matter what, we’ll make this work.” 

Richie nods, ducking his head so his curls cover his face. His hand, long and elegant, wraps around the pen, beginning to fill the inventory with his messy scrawl. Eddie looks at him for a moment longer, breathless over how gorgeous he is, before he forces himself to get to his own inventory. 

They’re always straight forward, truth be told. Eddie’s limits haven’t changed much since the first one of these he filled out, young and naive in his Dom training class when he was sixteen. It’s easy to fill in his hard no’s—scat, piss, anything harsher than what his hands can inflict, feet, being blindfolded—and also easy to fill in his ideal kinks—bondage, spanking, biting, choking, giving praise. Almost as an afterthought, he scrawls a quick _I don’t want to control you outside of the bedroom_ at the bottom of the page. It’s only when he’s finished the inventory that he feels anxiety thread around his lungs. 

All this time, and he’s never once considered if he and Richie are compatible in this sense. He knows they understand each other, but do their kinks line up? Is Richie into something that Eddie cannot give him? What happens if Eddie really can’t be the Dom that Richie needs? What if—

“Done,” Richie’s soft voice breathes. Eddie comes back to himself to find Richie looking at him shyly, his shoulders hunched in. 

Eddie swallows, finally sliding his chair around the table to sit at Richie’s side. Richie slumps against him immediately, fitting himself in against Eddie’s side. Steeling himself, Eddie slides Richie’s inventory towards him, lining it beside his own so the words reflect back to them both. 

And they breathe a sigh of relief. 

Their limits align nearly perfectly. The only addition to Richie’s hard no’s are harsh humiliation and being shared, not that Eddie would ever share him in the first place. Eddie feels his ribcage erupt in flame when he reads over Richie’s kinks—being praised but also degraded, bondage, obedience, pain, being marked with hands and teeth. The perfect complement to Eddie’s. 

“We were made for each other, huh,” Richie jokes, but his voice is so breathy it comes out as a whisper. “Eds, I—”

“I know,” Eddie interrupts him, still staring down at their inventories. Paper evidence that he can be what Richie needs. Paper evidence that maybe, hopefully, he can be a good Dom. 

He feels the way Richie swallows, melting just a little further into him. He doesn’t need to look to know Richie’s eyes have to be glazing over. “Can we—?” 

_“Yes,”_ Eddie breathes. 

Richie shudders and lets out the sweetest whimper, turning his face into Eddie's neck. His hands scrabble for purchase on Eddie’s shoulders, shifting like he could bury himself in Eddie’s chest. He’s so gorgeous Eddie can’t handle it. 

“Baby,” Eddie whispers, pulling Richie back far enough to see his eyes. He needs to know Richie is aware of this conversation. “Richie, angel, what’s your safeword?” 

Richie blinks at him, his throat working, before he rasps, “Summer.” 

Eddie goes hot under the implications of that. “Good, sweetheart, thank you. You’re so good, Richie.” 

Richie shudders, pitching forward into Eddie’s chest again. He feels so good in Eddie’s arms, finally as close as Eddie has been dying to feel him since he was a kid. He almost can’t believe he finally has this, this beautiful taste of what he’s always wanted, so long as he doesn’t fuck anything up. 

And that sends a jolt through him, clearing some of the fog the arousal has settled over his brain. Inside this brief moment of clarity, he has the terrifying certainty that he _will_ fuck this up, losing control in some way and actually hurting Richie, irreparably damaging him or them. He has a flash of his mother, how she ignored every time he ever tried to tell her no, how she bulldozed straight over any boundary he ever tried to set up, and he thinks about how easy it would be for him to do the same. 

“Richie,” he says, heavy, and he must sound serious enough because Richie hums, turning his face up. “Richie, I need you to promise me you’ll safeword if you need to.” 

Richie jolts, pulling back enough that their eyes meet. He looks stricken, something devastated sliding across his expression. “Eds,” he says helplessly. 

Eddie shakes his head. “Promise me, sweetheart,” he rasps. He probably sounds too intense but he can’t help it; his chest is a swirling mess of instinct and emotion, both telling him to never let Richie go and to let him run as far away as he can. “If you’re uncomfortable at all, you tell me, okay? No matter what.” 

Richie’s hands cup his cheeks, touching their foreheads together. “You’re not going to hurt me, Eds.” 

Eddie smiles, a small sad thing. “Just promise me, Rich. Please.” 

Richie huffs, glaring at him. “I promise, but I also promise that you aren’t going to hurt me. I trust you, Eds. I’ll trust you enough for both of us.” 

It isn’t enough to dissolve the years of self-hatred sitting heavy in Eddie’s heart but it’s enough to soothe the snarl in Eddie’s instincts. He smiles, reaching to brush Richie’s hair from his forehead. “Thank you, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “I love you.” 

Richie grins, his cheeks flushing a pretty pink. “I love you too, Spaghetti.” 

He’s already tilting up for it when Eddie ducks in to kiss him, slow and deep and searching. It makes Richie whine, going limp against Eddie, opening for him eagerly. God, he’s everything Eddie’s ever wanted, he’s so sweet and pliant and enthusiastic. Eddie cannot wait to see what he looks like when he’s fully under. 

He drags his mouth away, letting his lips trace over Richie’s throat. Richie trembles in his arms. “I want you to go into my office. Clothes off, kneeling on the floor in front of my desk.” Richie gasps but doesn’t move. Eddie adds, firm but not unkind, “Now, baby.” 

Richie scrambles up in his haste to get down the hall, his eyes hazy and the flush of his cheeks trailing down his neck to his chest. He already looks wrecked and Eddie hasn’t even touched him yet. He can’t wait to see exactly what reactions he can pull out of Richie with everything he does. 

Once Richie is gone from the kitchen, Eddie closes his eyes and tries to breathe. 

The fear hasn’t really gone anywhere. He’s still terrified that he’ll do something to mess this up, certain that when he’s least expecting it the ghost of his mother will rear its ugly head and guide his hand to ruin. He has years and years of her conditioning still living in his head, after all; he still can’t use public transport without freaking out about germs and there will constantly be a part of him that worries about the allergies he knows he doesn’t actually have. The reach of her is insidiously deep inside of him. He’s not sure he’ll ever be truly free of it. 

He wonders, semi-hysterical, if this was a bad idea. If he should just call this entire thing off, tell Richie he doesn’t think he can do this. He knows that’s an option, if he really needs it. Richie would understand. But the idea of it makes something inside of Eddie burn with anger, that his mother stole his childhood from him and is now attempting to steal this too. She cannot have this. She cannot take Richie from him. 

Eddie forces a deep breath, willing his heart to calm down. He’ll be fine. He can do this. He can’t trust in himself, not yet, but he can trust in Richie’s trust in him. 

When his eyes open, he’s staring down at their inventories, fully complementary in every detail, and something like realization strikes into him. This is him and Richie, perfectly matched in every single way that, apparently, reaches into the bedroom as well. Eddie has spent years quietly watching him, cataloguing each of his reactions and limits until sometimes he thought he knew Richie better than he knew himself. How can he do anything but make Richie comfortable and happy, when that has been his goal since they met? He’s never pushed past Richie’s boundaries before; what makes him think he’ll start now? 

With new resolve, Eddie pushes himself out of his chair, turning and heading down the hallway to his office. It’s next to his bedroom, behind a sleekly stained door. It doesn’t get used very often, since it’s often easier to get his work done at the garage, but it does get used. Hopefully more now, Eddie thinks, forcing himself into that calm place he needs to be to Dom. 

Eddie pushes open the office door. His senses sharpen. His spine straightens out of instinct. And the lingering doubt evaporates. 

Richie’s kneeling in the center of the room. He’s completely naked, his clothes neatly folded on the edge of Eddie’s desk, his glasses sitting on top of the pile. He’s kneeling with his back towards the door instead of facing it, like Eddie had expected. And both of these things intrinsically mean that he is giving up full control, letting himself be completely vulnerable for Eddie. He trusts Eddie completely. 

And holy _shit_ —he’s the most beautiful thing Eddie has ever seen. He’s loose, content, the stretch of his hips open and the broad line of his shoulders relaxed. The curve of his spine is fragile under the thin skin of his back, pronounced with how his head is dropped to his chest, so pretty that Eddie’s teeth itch to leave bruises down the length of it. His hands are balanced on his thighs, light and flat. He’s absolutely perfect. 

“Look at you,” Eddie murmurs, walking around to stand in front of Richie. He lets one hand cup Richie’s cheek, his thumb brushing Richie’s bottom lip. “You’re so beautiful, sweetheart. So good for me.” 

Richie makes a soft noise, nuzzling into Eddie’s hand. He’s so sweet. Eddie wants to wreck him. 

Eddie doesn’t let himself think, only doing what feels instinctively right. This scene won’t get particularly heavy, not for their first time together, but he still allows himself to sink into that easy dominance. He drifts back around to Richie’s back, considering him for a moment before he kneels behind him, pulling Richie back into his chest. Richie melts against him, his head tilting onto Eddie’s shoulder. 

And he’s so amazing, so beautifully good that Eddie knows he has to reward him. He turns his head, nosing at Richie’s temple. “Can I touch you, baby?” he asks quietly, letting his fingertips trail down Richie’s chest. 

Richie shudders, nodding desperately. “Yes,” he gasps out, his words slurring. “Yes, please, please—”

He’s so hard between his legs, his cock jutting out of his naked lap. Even that is gorgeous, thick and long. Eddie wonders what it would feel like splitting him open. 

“Shh, sweetheart, I’ve got you,” Eddie soothes him, settling his hand on Richie’s heaving belly. He’s always loved Richie’s body, thick and soft and so fucking broad, but he’s never seen it like this—vulnerable and completely at his mercy. It makes him feel wild. “Doing so well for me. I’m gonna make you feel so good. Can I have your hands, baby?” 

Obediently, Richie drags his hands off of his thighs, offering them to Eddie. Eddie carefully wraps one hand around both of his wrists, pleased when Richie lets out a shaky moan and shudders in his arms. Emboldened, Eddie pulls Richie’s arms against his chest, his tight grip on Richie’s wrists holding him to his sternum. 

Slowly, Eddie lets his other hand trail down Richie’s belly to wrap around Richie’s cock, stroking once. Richie chokes, a loud whine ripping through his teeth as he spasms in Eddie’s arms. His hands twitch in Eddie’s grip but otherwise don’t move. 

Eddie has always known that Richie is sensitive. He’s weird about certain fabrics, heavy denims and tough material too much for his skin, and he’s so ticklish that a single poke can make him squirm away. Eddie’s exploited it in the past, digging his fingers into Richie’s sides to get him to give up an argument, but that pales in comparison to the way Richie twitches and gasps in his arms every time Eddie’s hand moves, trembling even at the slightest touch. Eddie tightens his hold on Richie’s wrists, relishing in the way he whines. 

“You’re perfect,” Eddie murmurs, brushing his lips over Richie’s pulse point. Richie sobs. “You’re doing so well, sweetheart. So good for me. You’re my perfect boy, aren’t you?” 

Richie’s leaking enough that the glide of Eddie’s hand on his dick is smooth enough without needing to stop and grab lube, and Eddie thinks the slight sting of how rough it is probably feels good too. He tightens his grip, fisting his cock the way he’s always thought Richie would like, and is delighted when Richie falls apart. 

Eddie sucks bruises into the skin of Richie’s shoulder, feeling nearly feral at the idea that he’s finally got his mouth on the ridiculous spread of them. Richie’s shoulders have haunted him since he first hit his growth spurt, shooting up from awkward kid to gangly teenager to broadened man, wide and so unbelievably hot. The fact that he is exactly Eddie’s type had always felt like a cruel joke by the universe, but now it feels like the greatest gift he has ever been given. 

Richie’s whines ratchet up in volume, the pink flush of his chest reaching almost to his hips. His thighs are trembling, his hands balling into fists against his chest. His cock is twitching in Eddie’s grip, sweet little moans tearing out of him every time Eddie’s thumb swipes over the head. 

“Can’t wait to spread you out on a bed,” Eddie says in his ear, his voice rough. “Just wanted to see you kneel for me today, but fuck, sweetheart, the things I’ll do to you next time. Wanna see you tied up for me, baby. You’ll look so good in rope.” 

Richie gasps, his back arching. He whimpers, his eyes fluttering closed, his hips jerking up into Eddie’s touch. He’s so responsive. Eddie wants to touch him all over, see every kind of reaction he can pull out of him. 

“Does that sound good, sweetheart?” he keeps going, smoothing his thumb over Richie’s collarbone. “I’d love to take my time with you, stretch you out and get you begging for me before I fuck you. How do you like it, angel? You’ll have to teach me. Hard and fast? Or slow and deep? Or what about both, love?” 

He doesn’t give Richie time to respond, if he even could. “Keep your hands here,” he says, squeezing his hand hard around Richie’s wrists. “Nod if you understand me, sweetheart.”

Richie nods frantically, his throat clicking with it. When Eddie pulls his hand away, Richie’s arms stay obediently bound against his chest, biceps quivering with the effort. Eddie moans at the sight. 

Eddie lets his hand creep to splay over Richie’s heart, feeling the frantic beat of it. It makes him feel hot, the knowledge that he did that, but that’s not why he freed his hand. He drags his hand up Richie’s sternum and taps his thumb against Richie’s collarbone, once twice three times, before he carefully, slowly slides his hand up and around Richie’s throat, and Richie—

Richie _fractures._

He moans, bucking into Eddie’s grip, and it’s then that he seems to find his voice. “Please, please,” he gasps wetly, whining long and low, tears shining in his pretty eyes, “please, can I come?”

And oh, he’s so _sweet_. Eddie bites at his ear, twisting the hand on his cock and tightening the hand around his throat. Richie will probably have marks from it, here and on his wrists. The thought makes Eddie’s blood burn. “Come for me, sweetest,” he breathes. “Show me how good you feel.” 

Richie cries out, his entire body trembling as he comes and comes into Eddie’s hand, near screaming at the pleasure. His body spasms, convulses, jerks both into the touch and away. He’s sobbing gorgeous sounds as the tears leak down his cheeks and drip off of his jaw. It’s the hottest thing Eddie has ever seen in his life. 

He slows his hand down and pulls the hand around Richie’s throat away when Richie’s cries tip over into overwhelmed, letting go of his softened cock to press his hand to Richie’s belly, holding him close. He’s pressing kisses to Richie’s neck and shoulders, murmuring sweet praise into the skin to let him bask in the feeling, keep him grounded but also keep him floaty, Eddie’s perfect boy. 

Eddie’s been achingly hard this entire time, still trapped in his pajama pants and pressed against Richie’s back, but it’s less important than the man in his arms. He waits until Richie’s breathing is back under control before he swears and shoves his pants down, reaching between them with the hand still soaked in Richie’s come to fist his own cock. Richie moans like he’s the one being touched, eagerly pressing himself back against Eddie to feel him. 

Eddie curses, already right on edge from seeing Richie fall apart. Richie fell apart because of _him_ , he did that, he took care of Richie so well, and that, combined with the whimper Richie lets out, makes him come harder than he thinks he ever has in his life. 

He groans, painting the small of Richie’s back with his come, feeling it squish between them when he pulls Richie tight against him. He shudders through it, working his hips a bit, pleasure sparking behind his eyelids until finally he slumps, exhausted and so fucking happy. 

They sit. They breathe. Eddie smiles. 

He turns his head, nosing at Richie’s sweaty hair. Richie’s completely sagged against him, body still faintly trembling but now completely limp, relaxed—sated. Eddie feels a fierce rush of joy at the sight. 

“How’re you doing, sweetheart?” he murmurs, petting his fingers over Richie’s chest and stomach. They’re both disgusting and in dire need of a shower, but for now Eddie doesn’t want to move. 

Richie makes a soft noise, somewhere between a laugh and a whimper. His hands still tremble against his chest, exactly where Eddie had pressed them. Eddie can’t keep in his smile, reaching with both hands to thread his fingers around Richie’s wrists again, gentler this time, thumbs settling against his palms. 

“You can move your hands, baby,” he says. Richie gasps, letting Eddie gather his hands and then wrap both of their arms around him, completely immobile with Eddie pressed against his back. “You’re so good, Rich, you were perfect for me. I love you so much. Thank you for trusting me, sweetheart.” 

Richie hums softly, turning his head so his forehead is pressed against Eddie’s neck. “Best Dom,” he slurs. “Love you.” 

Eddie laughs, kissing his forehead and smoothing his thumbs along the inside of his wrists. He lets them sit there for several more minutes, long enough for Richie to stop trembling, before he coaxes Richie up and down the hall to the bathroom. His clothes are ruined, covered in come, but that’s not his priority right now. His priority is Richie and taking care of him. 

He sits Richie down on the edge of the tub, leaning over him to run the bath and making sure the water is on this side of too hot, the way Richie likes. He helps Richie into the tub, carefully, before he strips and gets in behind him, pulling Richie back against his chest. They lounge there, content in the warmth, until finally, some indeterminate time later, Richie sighs and stretches, humming softly. 

“My brain is mush,” he complains quietly, though his lips are turned up in a bright grin. “You murdered me, Spaghetti.” 

“I’ll actually murder you if you don’t stop calling me that,” Eddie huffs, kissing his cheek. He absently strokes over Richie’s chest. “How are you feeling?” 

Richie grins and stretches again, almost preening. There’s not much room in the tub, not when Richie is as big as he is, but Eddie appreciates the view nonetheless. “Fantastic. Like I just got my soul dragged out of my dick.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes, pinching softly at Richie’s hip and grinning when it makes him squirm away, ticklish. “Shut up, asshole. It wasn’t too much?” He reaches for Richie’s wrists, thumbing at the red marks wrapped around the skin. There are similar marks around his throat. 

Richie scoffs, tilting his head back to meet Eddie’s eyes. “Definitely not. I loved that, Eds, I promise. You’re not gonna break me.” 

Eddie sighs, going quiet. Logically, he knows that. Logically, he’s aware that Richie can take care of himself and that he wouldn’t stand for Eddie doing anything he was uncomfortable with, and logically he also knows that their inventories matched up so well that there should be no way that Eddie goes too far. But logic has never really been his strong suit, not in the face of his anxiety, and it doesn’t help that he thinks a part of him will forever be terrified of this going badly. 

But Richie is right, he knows. If Richie has so much trust that Eddie won’t hurt him, Eddie also has to have trust that Richie isn’t lying, and that Richie will speak up if something does go wrong. 

“But it was good?” he asks quietly, not above fishing for compliments but more genuinely scared of what Richie could say. 

Richie huffs a laugh. “Yeah, Eds. It was good.” 

“And you don’t think we’re moving too fast?” Eddie’s voice trembles.

“Baby,” Richie sighs, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling in a move that looks exactly like Stan. “It took us nearly thirty years to get here. I’d say we actually moved too slow.” 

“Okay,” Eddie whispers back, pressing his lips to Richie’s shoulder, the fight leaving him. “I have to go into the garage at some point today. Do you wanna come with me?” 

Richie grins. “What happened to banning me from the premises? Last time I asked you were all ‘you’re not stepping foot in my garage, Tozier.’”

Eddie rolls his eyes, lacing their fingers together over Richie’s belly. “Maybe I wanna spend some time with you, dickwad, is that such a crime?” 

“It is, actually. I’ll let you off with a warning if you let me touch your dick, though,” Richie says, solemn. 

Eddie huffs at him but doesn’t try to fight it. He thinks, as he helps Richie turn around and then reach down for his dick, that he’s powerless when it comes to Richie. 

Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

* * *

For all that Richie jokes about being banned from Eddie’s garage, he’s actually not that far off. He’s not actually banned, obviously, but Eddie can count on one hand the amount of times Richie has been in the garage in the years since Eddie opened it. 

It’s not for lack of trying, nor is it really an attempt by Eddie to keep Richie away. It’s honestly just a matter of timing, because most days Richie is at the station while Eddie’s working, and on the days he’s not he’s usually catching up on sleep or planning for his next segment. Sometimes he comes to bring Eddie lunch on his off days, the two of them laughing in Eddie’s office, but Eddie has always liked keeping his personal and professional life separate, and that has always included keeping Richie from permeating the garage. 

That thought goes completely out of the window when he sees what Richie looks like here. 

Eddie really does have work to get done; the restoration project Danny brought in needs to be done by the weekend, and Eddie’s too much of a perfectionist to let this wait until the last minute. He’d expected Richie to get bored, probably hang out in Eddie’s office, and then they’d go get lunch or something. In reality, it’s Eddie that keeps getting distracted, glancing at where Richie has settled himself on the table of Eddie’s workstation, swinging his legs and singing along to the music playing from the speakers. 

Richie grins at him, his cheeks flushed and his eyes bright. He’s wearing one of Eddie’s sweatshirts, the fabric pulled tight over his shoulders. His neck is covered in hickies. Eddie has to clench his fists to keep from wrecking him again, right here. 

“Looking good, Spaghetti-O!” Richie crows, wolf-whistling when Eddie bends over the engine of the car again. He’d done the same thing when Eddie first stepped out of his office in his coveralls. “That’s my man, ladies and gents!” 

Eddie rolls his eyes, a fond smile curling his lips. “You’re a menace,” he says, putting his wrench down and reaching for the oil. “I should’ve left you at home.” 

Richie gasps, mock-offended. “And let me miss out on this view? You’re a cruel man, Edward Spaghedward. What did I do to deserve such punishment?” 

On the tip of Eddie’s tongue sits something flirtatious, something past the line of what friends can say to each other. He’s so used to biting it back that he almost forgets he’s allowed to say that now, so he lets himself turn to Richie and wink, purring, “I’ll show you punishment, sweetheart.” 

It’s satisfying to watch Richie squeak, a furious pink flush coloring his cheeks and down his neck. It’s also a little surprising, watching the way that Richie gets flustered whenever Eddie flirts back with him, how easily taken apart he is. He’s absolutely perfect. Eddie is already addicted to it. 

He laughs, turning back to the car. He’s almost done, truly, just finishing off the last details before he can call this project complete. He wants to get it done now, thinking of maybe bringing Richie back to his place, spreading him out on the bed the way he’s been thinking of all day—

And then the speakers spill the tiniest bit of static, the radio tuned to Richie’s station but obviously in control of someone without the same capabilities that Richie has, and Eddie is viciously reminded of the things that happened to get them to this point. 

He sighs, putting down all of his tools and wiping his hands on his rag. He turns to Richie, feeling his face pull into a frown. “How are you holding up?” 

Richie blinks at him, his eyebrows furrowing. “Like, with us? ‘Cause I’m fantastic, honestly, which is usually what happens when you get your dick touched by the love of your life—”

“No, jackass, I mean in general,” Eddie interrupts, rolling his eyes. “With what happened last week.” 

Richie’s breath stutters out of him, his shoulders slumping a bit before he shakes his head. “I’m fine, Eds, you don’t have to worry your pretty little head over me.” 

Eddie blows out a sigh, pushing away from the car to step between Richie’s legs, smoothing his hands up Richie’s thighs. Richie’s hands go to his shoulders. “Rich,” he says quietly, leaning their foreheads together. “You don’t have to pretend you’re fine. Not with me.” 

It’s devastating to watch Richie’s face fall, the wall he’d tried to throw up crumbling away. He doesn’t quite meet Eddie’s eyes, looking somewhere over his shoulder, exhaling softly. 

“I, uh, I’ve been a little shitty,” he admits quietly. “Not because of us, I promise, it’s not you—”

Eddie kisses him to shut him up, cupping his cheek in one hand. Richie whimpers against his mouth, something fragile in the tremble of his lips. When Eddie pulls away, he doesn’t go far, breathing in his air and desperately hoping that he is enough. 

“I know that, baby,” he whispers, stroking his thumb over Richie’s cheek. “You were just assaulted bad enough it sent you into subdrop, it makes perfect sense that you’re still trying to deal with that.” 

Richie trembles in his arms, tucking his nose into the crook of Eddie’s neck. It hurts his heart to see Richie like this, his boy scared and upset, and not be able to do anything about it. This isn’t a problem that Eddie can just magically fix for him unless he could turn back time, even though he itches to find the fucker that hurt Richie and tear him apart with his bare hands. He can’t do that though, and he thinks it would scare Richie anyways, so he does the only thing he really can: he gathers Richie close, smoothes a hand down his spine, and kisses his temple. 

“They upped security at the station, which is nice, I guess,” Richie mumbles into his neck. “And Becca walks with me to the subway whenever she can but…” He trails off, shaking his head. 

Eddie blows out a sigh, pulling Richie just that little bit closer. “Do you think you’d feel safer if you left the station?” he asks, pitching his voice as soft as possible. 

He feels the way Richie tenses and then deliberately forces himself to relax. “I don’t want to leave,” he says, firm. “I really don’t. I don’t think I’d like working anywhere else. It’s just. Hard. Right now.” 

“It’s only been a week,” Eddie reminds him, stroking his fingers over the back of Richie’s neck. “It’s probably going to be hard for a while, but it’ll get easier.” He pauses, then softly asks, “Have you thought about talking to someone about it?” 

Richie pulls back to look at him, his brows furrowed. “Like a shrink?” His face goes thoughtful. “Not—not necessarily, but I guess it couldn’t hurt. I don’t know, I’ve never really wanted to go to therapy, I just don’t want—I don’t want to leave the station.”

Eddie smiles at him, gentle. “Then don’t, baby. And you don’t have to think about therapy if you don’t want to. Do what’s gonna make you happy.” 

Richie gives him a tentative grin back, his eyes crinkling behind his glasses. “You make me happy,” he says softly, sweetly, and then he smirks. “And I will gladly do you whenever I can.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes, squeezing Richie’s thigh. “You’re disgusting, you know that?” But his voice is much too warm to be anything other than tender, his touch gentle around Richie’s back. “I love you, you fucking muppet.” 

Richie pulls him in closer, wrapping his arms around Eddie’s shoulders and his legs around his hips. Eddie sighs and turns into Richie’s neck. “I love you too, Spaghetti.” He goes quiet and then whispers, “Thanks. I think—I’m gonna think on it for a bit so don’t get your hopes up but therapy might not be a horrible idea.” 

Eddie hums, pressing his lips into Richie’s pulse point. He likes how it makes Richie shiver in his arms. 

They’re silent for several long moments. Eddie keeps his face pressed into Richie’s neck, rubbing his cheek against the soft skin. He hasn’t shaved in a couple of days and his stubble is likely going to leave rough burns on Richie’s skin but the way Richie melts into him at the feeling makes him a little less worried about that. 

Finally, after a minute, Richie sighs and turns his head so his nose is pressed into Eddie’s temple. His fingertips are gentle where they trace over Eddie’s shoulders, his voice soft when he murmurs, “While we’re having a serious conversation, can I ask you something?”

Eddie goes tense, his anxiety bubbling up in his chest, but he forces himself to relax. “Of course sweetheart, anything.”

He feels the way that makes Richie smile, his lips turning up against Eddie’s cheekbone. He stays quiet for a moment longer before he whispers, “What did you mean with what you wrote on your inventory?” 

Eddie doesn’t need him to explain; in his head the words _I don’t want to control you outside of the bedroom_ flash, written in his own neat handwriting. He had hoped that Richie wouldn’t notice it, or maybe just wouldn’t mention it. He should’ve known better, though; Richie can be devastatingly perceptive and observant when he wants to be. 

He sighs, drawing back to look at Richie. He shrugs. “I don’t want to control you,” he says, his voice crackling slightly. “Not outside of the bedroom. Being your Dom during sex is one thing but I—Richie, I can’t be my mom, I can’t, I can’t hurt you like that—”

This time it’s Richie that kisses him to shut him up, his hands cupping Eddie’s jaw to hold him close. Eddie’s breath rushes out of him, kissing Richie back like it’s the only thing he knows how to do. He thinks it might be. Sometimes he feels like he was only made to love Richie Tozier. What a beautiful existence to have, if that was the case. 

“You can never be your mom, Eds,” Richie tells him, fierce. “Absolutely fucking impossible for you to be like that woman, do you hear me? Baby, you are the best Dom I have ever met. You’re the best fucking _man_ I’ve ever met. You’ve been taking care of me since we were kids, Eds, even before either of us took our dynamic tests.” 

“Controlling is different than just taking care of,” Eddie argues back hotly. “Controlling you would mean that I’d—I’d make decisions for you, or cross your boundaries, or fucking hurt you and call it love, or fucking—not listen when you say no—” His breath catches as a realization thunders through his chest, something he thinks has lurked there for a while but that he’s never been strong enough to confront. Now, he carefully prods at it, gasping when it fills him up so much he cannot stop himself from whispering, “Which are all things I’ve never done.” 

Richie’s smile goes soft, his eyes so impossibly warm. “Now you’re getting it,” he murmurs. 

Eddie stares at him, feeling his lungs constrict. Irrationally, his fingers itch for his inhaler, long since discarded somewhere Eddie genuinely cannot remember, but this isn’t asthma. It’s not even really anxiety. It’s _hope_ , something as beautiful and tremulous and free as a baby bird. 

“I’ve never controlled you,” he tells Richie, nearly wild with it. Richie just keeps smiling, patient. “Richie, I’ve never controlled you. Never.” 

Richie nods, finally pulling him in closer to drop a kiss to his nose. “Sure haven’t,” he agrees. “You know why, Eds?” 

The answer sits at the tip of Eddie’s tongue, so sure that for a moment it feels divine. He doesn’t let himself second-guess it. “Because I’m a good Dom,” he says, and knows it’s the right answer when Richie beams. 

“Yeah, you fucking are.” Richie’s voice is tender, his grin so bright it’s blinding. Eddie loves him so much it hurts. “You’re the best Dom in the entire world and I love you so goddamn much.” 

Eddie has to kiss him then. He can’t stay away, not with the joy rolling around inside of him and the knowledge that it was Richie that put it there. He came to this conclusion on his own, yes, but he never would have without Richie pushing so hard to try and convince him he was and always had been a good Dom. Eddie’s hands itch to touch Richie’s skin, sliding under his sweatshirt and cupping the solid strength of his ribs, crushing the two of them together hard enough that Eddie thinks his lungs will get knocked loose. 

This will not be the end of it. Eddie knows himself, knows that he will have to fight to continuously remind himself of what he’s realized today, but in this moment, he feels the last shackle of his mother’s influence unlock and drop away. 

“I love you,” he gasps into Richie’s mouth, swallowing Richie’s whimper. “I love you, I love you, I love you—”

Richie drags him even closer, tipping himself backwards and tugging Eddie up until Eddie’s weight is pressing him into the counter. His hands scrabble to push Eddie’s coveralls off of his shoulders and down his waist, ripping his own sweatshirt off until they’re shirtless. 

Eddie ends up getting to see what Richie looks like wrecked and bent over the hood of a car, after all.

* * *

They end up spending an entire week together, effectively just the two of them. The only time they’re apart is when Richie heads into the station or Eddie into the garage, and even that doesn’t really count; Eddie does his best to slip over to the station during his lunches, in some part to try and remind Richie that he is safe in this space. Other than that, they spend the nights in either of their apartments, learning what it means to live with each other. 

It won’t be for real for a while. Eddie may be working towards accepting himself as a good Dom but there are still boundaries he will not cross. He doesn’t think it would be a good idea for either of them to jump straight into a serious relationship and living together; relatively slow is better here. Still, this pale imitation of what it would mean to live with Richie makes warmth flutter in his belly. 

Eddie is so caught up with basking in Richie that he almost forgets about the other Losers until Friday rolls around and brings with it another game night. One that Richie had essentially demanded that Eddie show up to. 

Eddie’s irrationally anxious over it. He’s texted here and there, mostly with Stan, in part to prove he was still alive and in part to see what damage he had caused. He’d even met up with Ben for their normal Tuesday lunch, apologizing profusely for having missed the last one with no text or anything. Ben, to his credit, had just hugged him and said, smiling, “If you ever do that again, Kaspbrak, I’ll break your fucking knees,” and that was that.

But Eddie hasn’t seen the rest of the Losers since sometime before his breakdown, and as much as he knows he doesn’t really have much to worry about, he’s absolutely terrified. They’ll be more hurt than angry and even that hurt will fade if Eddie explains what had happened, but Eddie’s scared that they’ll hate him. He still isn’t sure he’s going to explain—that feels too much like poking at the most tender, bruised part of him—but he will always have the Losers’ support. Once a Loser, always a Loser. 

Still, Eddie finds himself clutching to Richie’s hand when they pull up outside of Patty and Stan’s. The irony of this particular hangout being here hadn’t been lost on him. 

Richie smiles at him from the passenger seat, reaching over to carefully thumb at Eddie’s cheekbone. “It’ll be fine, Eds,” he reminds him softly, his grin bright in the darkness. “I’ll be right there the whole time.” 

Eddie blows out a breath. Nods. Forces himself out of the car and up the stairs. 

They’re the last ones to arrive, because of course they are. Eddie can hear Bev and Mike laughing from outside of the door, Bill’s offended squawk sounding just as Richie lets them in. Eddie walks in behind him, nearly completely hidden. 

“Rich!” Bev calls, already sounding tipsy. “We were wonderin’ where you—”

She cuts off with a startled gasp when Eddie steps out from behind him, feeling his stomach twist into knots. All of the Losers stare at him, their expressions ranging from shock to relief. Nobody says anything for several long moments, long enough that Eddie is certain they’ll start yelling, but then Bill shoves himself off of the couch, nearly tripping in his haste to clear the distance between them and drag Eddie into a tight hug. 

“Eddie, thank god,” he breathes into Eddie’s shoulder, and it’s like the dam has been broken. The rest of the Losers crowd around him, touching his hands and his back and around his waist. It should feel stifling, and it does a little bit, but mostly Eddie just feels warm and so full of love he thinks he could float away. 

He ends up on the couch, squished between Mike and Patty, both of whom are holding onto his hands like he will disappear the second they let go. It’s not an entirely unfounded fear, so Eddie puts up with it, squeezes their hands back, keeps his grip tight. 

“Can we ask what happened?” Bill says eventually, when the joy of seeing Eddie has faded into the hurt and confusion that Eddie had been anticipating. “I mean, you just stopped talking to us randomly and we didn’t even know if you were okay.” 

Eddie breathes in through his nose, straightening his back. “I’m sorry,” he begins, “about that. I shouldn’t have isolated myself and I should’ve at least tried to talk to someone. It just—it felt like the right thing to do.” 

Bev frowns, her eyes sparking. “Why would that ever be the right thing to do?” 

Eddie resists the urge to duck his head and hide, his gaze finding first Stan and then Richie. Both of them nod at him, silent support as they are, and Eddie keeps his eyes locked with Richie’s when he murmurs, “Because I thought I was a bad Dom and I thought Richie got hurt because of me.” 

“Which is bullshit,” Richie jumps in before anyone can say anything, glaring around the room. “Eddie didn’t do anything except get me out of subdrop so it is in no way his fault.” 

Stan rolls his eyes, reaching out to brush his knuckles along Richie’s arm. “We know that, dick, calm down. I was there, remember? The only one who thought Eddie was a bad Dom was Eddie.” 

Ben nods, leaning forward enough that he can smile at Eddie over Mike. “Yeah, we could’ve told you that. Do you really think we’d be friends with someone that we thought was a bad Dom? You know you’re the one that always takes care of us, right?” 

The others nod. It makes the backs of Eddie’s eyes go hot, the unwavering faith his friends have always had in him, faith that he had always been in too much denial to see. All he can do is smile back and try to blink his tears away. 

“You said thought,” Mike says, quiet but no less commanding. “Past tense. Do you not think that anymore?” 

Eddie blinks at him, tightening the grip he has around Mike’s hand. “Part of me will probably always think that,” he admits softly, painfully honest. “My mom—she really fucked me up. But I’m getting better. I should probably think about therapy but for now—” His eyes cut to Richie, taking in the small smile on his face. When he speaks again, it’s only the two of them in the room. “I’m alright.” 

He thinks that will be the end of it. The rest of the Losers nod, smiling softly at him and Richie, and they move on. That’s the thing about the Losers; they know exactly when to push and when not to. Mike and Patty’s hands stay clasped around his but they don’t try to talk to him about it, content to rub their thumbs over his knuckles and reassure themselves that he’s there and that he’s okay. Not for the first time, Eddie feels a fierce rush of love for the people he has chosen as his family.

Still, they find ways to show their support for him. Bill drapes himself over the back of the couch and then over Eddie’s shoulders, ruffling his hair and talking to him in the calming way he always has. Bev catches his eye and raises her drink to him in a silent toast, her expression warm even when it slides to the hickeys visible on Richie’s neck; Eddie flushes at the wink she gives him. Ben and he had already had their moment at lunch, but that doesn’t stop Ben from giving him a truly dazzling smile, his cheeks smushed under the weight of his joy. Stan catches him in a hug when he finally stands up to go get a drink from the kitchen, silently wrapping his arms around Eddie’s shoulders and clinging to him. It’s only a second later that Patty presses against his back, the two of them locking him in an embrace that feels like coming home.

The only one he doesn’t get anything from—besides Richie, who never holds back his praise of Eddie and has been sending him grins all night—is Mike, who Eddie might just be the most scared for. His friendship with Mike has always been characterized by heart-wrenchingly earnest words, more honest with each other than they could afford to be with anyone else. Part of him is terrified that Mike is about to make him cry, especially when Mike follows him into the kitchen and shuts the door behind him.

“I’m proud of you,” Mike tells him without preamble, his expression serious but soft. “Seriously. I know you don’t really want to talk about it, but I need you to know that I am.”

Eddie’s throat tightens with tears, Mike’s kind face blurring a little bit. “Thanks, Mikey,” he chokes out, watery. “I really am sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt—”

Mike shakes his head, his big hands gripping onto Eddie’s shoulders. “I’m not worried about that. We’re just glad you’re okay.” He pauses, then smirks. “And that you and Richie finally got your shit together.”

Eddie snorts. “Been a long time coming, huh?” He’s kind of joking, but Mike’s face softens and sweetens, his smirk shifting into a smile.

“Yeah,” he agrees, “it has. He’s good for you, Eddie. You’ve never looked as happy as you do when you’re with him.” His chin tilts down, their foreheads touching. “He’s never looked as happy as he does when he’s with you, either,” he whispers. “You’re good for him, I promise you. You will never, _ever_ be like your mother.”

For some reason, hearing it from Mike strikes a deeper chord in Eddie. Mike has always been their voice of reason, amazingly perceptive and able to see deep into the heart of anyone he ever talks to. Eddie had always been scared to ask Mike what he saw in him, terrified it would reflect the black rot he was certain lined his soul. Now, he thinks that rot has given way to new growth; not quite flowers, not yet, but seedlings that could become something beautiful, if only Eddie keeps watering them.

“Thank you,” he rasps, his voice rough. “I love you, you know that? So fucking much.”

Mike grins at him, drawing him forward with a big hand on the back of his head to press a firm kiss to his forehead. When he turns to leave, he does so with a squeeze to Eddie’s hand.

Eddie’s shoulders slump, eager to get drunk and forget about all of this for a moment, but Richie slips into the kitchen right after Mike slips out, his curls a mess and his eyes bright.

“If you’re here to say you’re proud of me, I can and will fucking deck you,” Eddie tells him seriously, certain he can’t take much more.

Richie laughs, crowding him back against the counter, pressing their chests together. “Feisty,” he teases, snickering at the glare Eddie gives him. “I wasn’t going to say that I was proud of you but now I feel like I should.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, fitting his hands around Richie’s ribcage. “Don’t even fucking think about it,” he warns, stroking his thumbs over Richie’s stomach. “What were you going to say?”

Richie, who had gone pliant and half-lidded, makes a small noise, leaning more of his weight into Eddie’s chest. Eddie holds him up easily. “That I love you,” Richie says quietly, a small smile curling his mouth. “That you make me so happy I don’t know what to do with myself. That you fuck me better than I’ve ever been fucked before.”

Eddie pinches his side for that, grinning at the sound of Richie’s giggle. Despite his show of annoyance, he pulls Richie even closer, tugging him down to kiss him. “I love you,” he murmurs against Richie’s lips, swallowing Richie’s whimper. “You are everything to me.”

When they pull away, Richie’s cheeks are pink, his grin soft and sweet. He brushes his fingers along Eddie’s cheek, the happiness blazing out of him so brightly it almost hurts to look at. 

“Patty wanted to play a game of truth or dare,” he murmurs, the corner of his lips pulling up. “Think you’re up for that?”

Eddie thinks about their friends, and the jokes that will most certainly be made at their expense, and how now he’s allowed to pull Richie into his lap and kiss him whenever the need arises. He thinks about the road that has led them both here, the road that winds into an unknown future, and how they will stay by each other’s side the entire time. He thinks about his mother, and how she would be rolling in her grave to see him now, and how he is viciously pleased that he is nothing like her. He may be Sonia Kaspbrak’s son, but Eddie Kaspbrak is changing what that means.

“Yeah,” Eddie breathes, grabbing Richie’s hand and dragging him back out into the living room. He never did get his drink, but he has something much sweeter right here. “Bring it on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi :-) thanks for reading my silly little fic that gave me brain worms for months!! i really hope you enjoyed it because this fic is my baby. if you ever wanna say hi, im usually always on twitter, and if you liked my writing i should have a new fic out semi-soon (but pls dont hold me to that im fragile and easily distracted). i love you so much 
> 
> special thanks to [chel](https://twitter.com/ebbielovebot) and [kieran](https://twitter.com/toz_kasp) for their love and support <3

**Author's Note:**

> come be my friend on [twitter](https://twitter.com/19tozier) or [tumblr](https://19tozier.tumblr.com)
> 
> i love u


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